It’s the Lace Challenge month at the Mood Sewing Network and in the past few months there has been a flurry of excitement and activity concerning the picking out of a choice piece of lace. I did not participate in any of that excitement, though, because way back in July of last year I used my Mood money to purchase some exquisitely beautiful green lace. (It sold out quickly so I unfortunately cannot link you to it. Here are some of their other laces.) Oh I had plans! I bought 3 yards and could have done just about anything.
So why are you looking at a plain straight skirt that could not possibly have taken all 3 yards to make? Because I screwed up, people. I had wanted to make a dress but I picked a pattern with princess seams. Despite all of my careful laying out and measuring to make sure this linear lace lined up, a dress with princess seams on the bodice simply will not look good with any fabric that has to be matched along the seamlines both vertically and horizontally. Plus I made some dreadful mistakes while cutting it out. I was very fortunate to be able to salvage the skirt portion. But oh, how my heart aches for that lost yardage!
This is my TNT straight skirt pattern, McCall’s 3830, which I used for the straight skirt portion of the dress. I’ve used this pattern quite a lot lately and you are probably tired of hearing about it.
Thankfully I didn’t make any laying out mistakes on the skirt portion, and the pattern of the lace flows nicely across the side seams and back.
I used green bemberg from Mood for the underlining and lining. I tried several different colors but kept coming back to the dark green.
I really wanted to underline this skirt so that the seams of the lace couldn’t be seen through the skirt. I also wanted uninterrupted scallops along the hemline. In order to get the look I wanted, I had to sew the lace to the underlining down to the top of the scallop. Then I sewed the bottom of the lace together, clipped the lace to the seamline at the bottom of the underlining hemline, and sewed the underlining together. I pressed the scalloped lace to one side and secured it with some hand stitching. After that I had only to whipstitch the underlining in place. This is a difficult process to describe, but here is what the final outcome looks line:
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| This picture is of the lace and underlining with the LINING PULLED UP AND OUT OF SITE. |
And here is the pattern I used, McCall’s 3830:
This skirt is not what I had pictured in my mind’s eye, but I do love it. The fabric is very fancy with gold thread woven throughout, so this skirt definitely fits my lifestyle more then a dress would have.