I've been wanting to make this skirt pretty much since I first bought the Drape Drape 2 book. I've had the pattern traced for years and every once in a while I pull it out and see if I have enough fabric to make it. And for some odd reason I never had quite enough. My fabric was always just shy of the width I needed. So I was quite pleased when I discovered that I had the perfect piece of black knit.
This skirt is number 3 on my Fall Sewing Plans. Yes, I've already re-ordered my plan of attack of the sewing list. This skirt is the same style (and fabric!) as the Senna Dress so when that pattern was released last week I decided I should share both of them this week in a kind of draped black knit theme.
Like the Senna Dress, looks rather odd on the hanger but comes to life on the body. All of sudden there's amazing draping on the sides and an oh-so-sexy slit right in the middle. This skirt is similar to a pencil skirt in shape but is composed of two large half circles that are gathered at the waist to create draping over the hips and openings at the center front and back.
This wasn't too difficult to make considering that my copy of the Drape Drape book is entirely in Japanese. I bought it at a Japanese book store before it was released in English and the illustrations are quite good so it's usually not much of an issue. It's more of a fun challenge! The one thing that I think I did wrong is the waistband. I think it's actually supposed to be just a piece of large elastic. I however used a piece of double-knit fabric folded in half and cut it a little bigger than the pattern piece. I chose the double knit to give the waistband more stability yet still have stretch.
I'm really please with how this skirt turned out. I honestly don't know which is the front and which is the back but I think maybe it just doesn't matter that much. The Drape Drape books are really fun and available in English here on Amazon. I'm moving along with my Fall Sewing plans and have just a little tweaking and hemming to do on my Tania culottes. Tune in next week for more sewing fun!
