Category: suiting

Clipped skirt

~ velosews ~ 13 Comments

At the moment I’m trying to develop a couple of Steampunk pieces for a bit of variety. I keep collecting style prompts on my pinterest board.

Dawn specialises in Steampunk. She goes through lots of gear I’ve not considered before. I’ve been reading Dawn’s posts on military-inspired steampunk. Her ‘clipped skirt’ image is what I thought was doable and wearable.

This skirt is a basic a-line skirt with a high waistline. When I looked closely at this image, I thought I could so a similar job with a few variations for my height.

Minerva Crafts UK has this fabric in stock (Beige/Black check polyester/wool blend suiting) and it’s got the right feel and weight to it for this skirt style.


It didn’t take long to rough draft a high waistline to my basic a-line skirt pattern.

Below is the lining pattern and after I made up the lining in a woven fabric, I ended up taking out more width at the darts. I used the dart seams to sew the boning for a firmer waistline fit.

Initial skirt lining pieces

Below is a photo of the boning sewn onto the lining.

inside view

The metal zipper and back buckles are a cool feature. I would have liked to add more hardware onto this skirt but it would have looked too heavy on me.

Back view

Next up… the Equestrian tail coat blouse and then… the full steampunk reveal on Thursday.

It’s green – Butterick 5277

~ velosews ~ Leave a comment

At our sewing weekend last week I spent much of my time on Saturday, trying to figure out why the neckline wasn’t sitting right. After whizzing the sleeves in, I had lunch and then as my blood sugar levels were refreshed, I saw that the sleeves were in the wrong way. I didn’t check where the neckline edge and sleeve hem edge were.

After what seemed like a good hour, I unpicked the sleeves and resewed them into the dress again. Did I mention that I’d done the same mistake to the lining? Yes it was painful, but I keep relearning that perseverance keeps me sewing.

At some point, I’ll transfer the marks from the pattern to the fabric so I don’t keep making the same mistake again.

The roll collar got lots of good comments from my sewing buddies and my work collegues but I realise that I need to make some quirky work so that my wardrobe doesn’t become boring.

I do have enough fabric in my stash to do a few challenging pieces and they are now on my sewing radar.

I will make this dress up again but without the collar in a patterned fabric. The neckline is a bit too wide to wear comfortably without feeling ‘showy’ so I’ll bring the neckline in by 1.5cm, add a contracting trim and see how it feels. Our weather is hot enough that wearing a sleeveless dress in the office with a light ‘cardy’ is acceptable.