Sunday, June 13, 2010

Flirt item #2.


Pattern: Burda 01-2009-105

With the creation of this item, my wardrobe is now committed. By this I mean that now the proportions and the colour of the skirt have been set, everything now must follow. The 4 tops must all go with this skirt, and they must all go with the other 3 bottoms. By choosing a patterned bottom, I will probably have to make all plain tops, by choosing knee length I am committed to tops that suit that proportion.

Not that I should really let this bother me. Am I the only one who looks at the wardrobe contest entries and thinks, "yes it goes really nicely with that skirt you've put it with for the photo, but there's no way it would go with those pants?" In other words, people do whatever suits them and their needs and I say all power to them.

This skirt was a true test of the "flirt" concept. Just in case you think I contorted a whole lot of initials to come up with something cute, let me assure you this was not the case. With this skirt, I needed every single one of these principles (faith, luck, intuition, risk, trust).

The vintage fabric was from Salvage, the second hand fabric shop in siren's hearing of my house. I often get sucked in their for a purchase. I have loved this fabric for so long, but each time put it back because it is pure polyester. Humid climate + polyester = sweaty mess. Last time we were in there my son trashed the store so quickly and so thoroughly that I had no time to think, I just grabbed it and said, "this time you're mine."

When I got home I remembered why I had always resisted. The challenge was to turn polyester into something comfortable, and for that I turned to Nick's for some linen. This is where the luck came in.

If you don't know Nick's, it's a clearance store on Dominion rd, which gets most of its fabric from things that don't shift at its upmarket parent store, Global fabrics (Australians will know this as "the fabric store'). It is home to what Nick himself calls " some real dogs." Personally, I'd call them mongrels. However, amongst a lot of trash there is pure treasure. If you know what you are looking at, you can pick up some real bargains.

This striped linen is one of them, and it came to the store via a clean out at Global. As they were loading up the truck, the guys said, "put something nice in there for our customers. Give them a treat." So this pure linen, which was too summery for winter sewing, got loaded up.

Before I went to bed that night, I thought to myself, "how can I put these two fabrics together."

And this skirt is what I literally dreamed up. The pattern, how to put the fabrics together, even the construction, it all came to me in a dream. In the morning I awoke and thought, "noooooooooo, not quilting."



But then I remembered the promise to follow my intuition and so I did it, and it does a good job of keeping the overskirt and underskirt together.

If I had sat down to plan a wardrobe, I would never have planned this.

And I wouldn't have planned this either: what tight-wad wardrobe is complete without a refashion? Let's see what I can do with this pleated mid calf length pure wool challis skirt from the Red Cross.

26 comments:

  1. Love how you dreamed this one up! That Red Cross fabric has potential plus!

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  2. I think the skirt turned out very cute indeed. Great dreaming you did there :-)

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  3. Look forward to seeing the red cross skirt refashioned :)

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  4. The whole outfit looks great. I presume the skirt is the same at the back? You've got a challenge with that next skirt remake...It could the fine line between dream and nightmare.

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  5. The whole outfit looks great. I presume the skirt is the same at the back? You've got a challenge with that next skirt remake...It could the fine line between dream and nightmare.

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  6. OOps, had trouble posting...

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  7. Like the look of faux-mini over longer skirt. I think the fabric is cute and can see why you had trouble resisting picking it up.

    I get what you mean by the outfit choices in a wardrobe. I have been sewing a storm and have nearly finished 3 skirts - 2 plain, one patterned. The patterned fabric intended for a top will go well with two of the skirts but, of course, not with the patterned skirt... so I suppose it is not really a 'wardrobe', even though I know I will wear all of them.

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  8. The skirt looks great on you. Well done!

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  9. LOVE. IT! Utterly adorable. I also have to say how unbelievably jealous I am that you have two fabric clearance shops within shopping distance.

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  10. THat is ingenious! I love it. You are really thinking this FLIRT through to an amazing detail. I agree with you that sometimes people don't really make things that go together with every part of their wardrobe. That's why it's so hard and why I admire what you're doing so much!

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  11. Great job! I love the combination of fabrics. I JUST passed up a linen with a very similar print, I may now need to go back and get it!

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  12. I really do like this new skirt. Love your styling.

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  13. Oooh!! Honey, with that skirt I think you might WIN this contest!!!

    Re: your comment on my blog post: I've never had my colors done but if I'm an "autumn" then that would be a hoot as I don't like that season!

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  14. oh, how I love your interesting and truly original skirt! The whole outfit looks great - so stylish!

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  15. The new blog look is great.

    The skirt is fabulous. You look great in it. You're right in that it sets the direction of your wardrobe but there is a LOT left to explore.

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  16. I would never have put those fabrics together as I am a conservative coward. They look fantastic! I really like the combination and the quilting is a winner. Funnily enough I was laying in bed this morning thinking about quilting a jacket (even though I've never done it before). I agree about the SWAP matching. It's hard to make all tops match all bottoms and invariably a top will go really well with one bottom and so so with the others. I like how flirt is progressing.

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  17. You DREAMED this up? No way my dreams are coherent enough to come up with something that cool! So far that must make the score - Flirt: 2, wardrobe orphans: 0.

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  18. Hey, that's a cute outfit you've pulled together....lovely colour combos.

    Not all your tops will have to be plain. I love mis-matched prints a la Dries Van Noten.

    It's good to hear that I am not the only one dreaming about sewing projects. Hmmm. The other day I woke up thinking about personalised pillow cases for all the birthday parties we have invites to. Sometimes it would be better to stay asleep...not in your case though, a very cute skirt!

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  19. Great skirt! I really like the combination of fabrics.

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  20. Nice skirty, yeah, real nice. The touch of vintage is always a nice feature, as far as I'm concerned.

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  21. I don't think you are entirely committed to entirely solid tops. It seems to me you could perfectly well match this skirts with some purple polka-dots, or some turquoise plaid, or something like that? If someone has the gall to object, just tell them Christian Lacroix did it :-).

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  22. gorgeous skirt!
    I have a question though, have you ever got a downloaded burda pattern printed out anywhere in auckland? I can't bear the thought of taping 50 A4 pages together

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  23. Hi Genny - oh I do hope you come back and check comments because before I answer your question I want to tell you how fabulous your style advice to me on my grey dress a while back was. I recently wore it with a belt, a blue cardy and little kitten shoes and it was just gorgeous, as you suggested.

    Now about Burda downloads, you know I've never tried taking them to a copy centre because (cough cough) why pay someone else to do it when I can do it for free at home.

    I have downloaded a few free burda patterns recently so I think I may have to find out more about it. Just about everyone complains about printing then taping then tracing. It does sound like a real hasssle.

    Other free downloads I've used print the pieces on top of each other so you just need to trace out over a few pages. Much better.

    If you do find out, let me know, likewise I'll let you know if I find out.

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  24. haha of course i'm coming back to check the comments, I work in an office, moving paper from one side of my desk to another....
    so glad my bossiness resulted in a win!
    I'll do some googling today for print shops, I just don't know what language I need to use with them to get the right result - will let you know if it works.

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  25. Love, love, love.....your skirt! Super cute.

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