Sewing Fail

For  those of you who landed here on a sewing Google,  lessons to learn from my recent failure.

The Vogue 8701 I shouldn't have
tried to make a skirt from

1. Don't make a skirt from the skirt pieces of a dress pattern.

I have so many patterns that I've never sewn, I thought I could save myself from buying another and use the bias skirt of Vogue 8701 to make my sister the simple, almost-circle skirt she wanted out of the acres of beautiful wool she got me for --don't laugh -- $5 at a garage sale.  It didn't lay right when I improvised a waistband where the pieces were expecting a bodice.  I also didn't get the size right; it came out too tight, then too loose when I let the seams out. Or the length; too short.

2. Don't make an almost-circle skirt out of good wool, especially for a middle-aged waist.  

Instead of falling into thin, twirly folds below a cinched waist, all that heavy fabric just fell into a few, fattening  panels, skiing off my sister's hips at an unattractive angle and stopping too soon, not much below the knee. I had her try it on for two attempts and she was unequivocal about rejecting it both times. 

Abject sewing failure; do not attempt.

I wasted oceans of time on that skirt, making lining, inserting invisible zipper, adding seam pockets, then letting out seams and sewing them over when it came out tight.  And I'm the wide sister. But I don't blame her. Great invisible zipper insertion doesn't make up for an unflattering cut.

Vogue 8667

I have to put this project away until I've racked up two or three successes.  Then I need to take all the pieces apart and see if I can cut an actual skirt pattern pieces from them.   Most of all, I still need to make my sister a wool skirt. With less fabric. And  a skirt pattern.

It's not like I've had no successes with this wool.  Here's the dress I made my younger daughter, in the grey: