McCall's 5591 - Dotted Swiss Summer Skirt

Click!

Click!

Miss Cranky Pants is banished, this skirt managed to exorcise her!    Recent projects by Gigi and Bunny inspired me to dig through my stash of heirloom trims and use them up. I did a lot of heirloom sewing when my daughters were young, but they outgrew those styles long ago and these pretty trims have been languishing for years.   Sewing heirloom its easy and predictable like quilting,  but wearing heirloom styles can be dicey in a modern context.  It’s actually rather tricky to come up  with heirloom garments that don’t look like reenactment clothing or Sunday best;  I wanted something I can wear to work in the summer.  Plus for me personally, as much as I love the look, a full-on Luxe Boho/Shabby Chic style looks silly on me .

For heirloom to work for me I need the trims need to be discrete and the pattern itself has to be more sporty/tailored than frilly.   McCall’s 5591 has those qualities and its a summer skirt: flattering, easy to wear and a good base for embellishment.  I made View A and eliminated the pockets.  The yellow band at the hem on the pattern envelope is a piece of fabric folded in half with the fold forming the hem.  That’s a separate pattern piece, so I just added that same amount of length onto the skirt pieces.  The dotted Swiss is semi-sheetr so I added a n underskirt made from vintage eyelet that belonged to my grandmother.  The embroidered dotted Swiss is from Gorgeous Fabrics (natch) and its cut in single layer layout so I could match up the embroidery at the side seams.

Click!

Click!

The trims are white tatting and French Val lace, and I made the lining a bit longer than the  skirt to let the underskirt/lining peek out.  The lining hangs free and the contoured waistband holds both the underskirt and the dotted Swiss.   This was a little tricky because the center back seam of the underskirt was the last to be closed so I could finish the inside of the back zipper with hand fell stitching.  The hems are done with a 1/8 inch narrow hemmer, and I have to say my vintage Wilcox & Gibbs hemmer foot works much better than any hammer foot on my domestic machines.  I have no idea why this is but I love using it!   After the skirt and underskirts were narrow hemmed the tatting and lace was attached with a narrow zig-zag.  The tatting is butted up against the hemmed edge and in the zig zag the needle sweeps over the edge of the tatting to bind it to the hem.

And the cameo?  I wanted to to see if I could style the skirt to show off the pretty underskirt.  It’s a vintage piece my mother gave me and I really can’t wear it on the skirt without it being damaged but maybe I can find fabric flower or a nice vintage costume pin instead.

The next question is:  what to wear with it? Maybe New Look 6755.