Happiness: pleated Ikea skirt

Sooo I have this huge backlog of sewing projects. Why? Partly because with 3 kids, my sewingtime is precious.

But it’s also because I’m just to much of a perfectionist. My favourite pastime is reading sewing blogs. Seeing all these great pictures and detailed posts, I become unsure about my makes and pictures.

And then time passes, and the number of unblogged projects grows. I realise perfect doesn’t exist, so without further ado I present one of my not so recent makes:

My happiness pleated skirt, (made in february! time flies)

My plan was to make a simple skirt with fabric from my stash. Well I thought it would be a simple make…

But with my perfectionism, it was actually pretty complicated and time consuming.

I was inspired by Tilly’s beautifull Thinking in shapes skirt. What I didn’t realise was that it’s almost impossible to get pleats across the design ánd match the sideseams ánd fitting to my measurements.

I learned more about pleats by this great detailed post from VeraVenus. I cut 2 rectangles for the back and front using the entire fabric width and  folded and basted the pleats using the graphic fabric design as a guideline, and cut the sides to get a patternmatching side seam.

Then I installed a simple sideseampocket, using a little piece of fabric I got from my grandmother and sewed this sideseam.

I made a simple rectangular waistband and attached it following the method described by Missmakes 3quarter circle skirt.

Finally I installed a invisible zip following the tutorial from Byhandlondon and made a wide double folded hem following the design of the fabric.

All edges are finished with the overlockstitch from my sewingmachine, using the overlockfoot.

And now I have this lovely colourfull skirt! I do need to make more matching tops. Taking pictures was another challenge with 3 kids and a husband who isn’t home before dark most of the time, and doesn’t like making pictures. First I made some pictures using the mirror, but when the sun was shining I just put my camera on a flat surface in our garden and snapped some using the selftimer. In hindsight the sun was too bright, but well there’s no such thing as the perfect results 😉

Pictures!

Hey kiddo! This time mommy wasn’t taking pictures of you actually

 

I’m pretty happy with this invisible zipper installation

 

Find the pocket

Back view, I think the pleat placement turned out pretty good.

Yay pocket! A bit low but still functional

 

Twirly skirt!

happy skirt!

 

 

This skirt makes me happy not only because of the colors, it also has a emotional value because of it’s history.

I bought this piece of fabric back in 2011, I remember it very clearly because it was the first time I was heading out after the birth of my second son Niek. Together with my twinsister and both my sons we went to Ikea Delft, wearing Niek in a babywearingwrap.

A few months later, Niek died at the consequences of a too late discovered rare liver disease. Now this silly piece of fabric reminds of that day out, when life was still simple and breezy and lighthearted…