Pencil Skirt – Sewn by Ashley

I’ve really been making an effort to sew from my stash. I bought this fabric last year when Joann had a sale on their “silky prints”. While I do love polka dots and red is one of the few colors are wear…I had almost immediate regret after buying this fabric. It’s just too shiny, too red. It looks like clown costume material! I thought about doing a solid black something with the clown polka dot skirt, but I just imagined that as worse…

Enter McCall’s 6952. Originally, I had envisioned this in view C, for my maxi dress sew-along but I really just think the print would overwhelming. Instead I went with view A, I love the back detail! Also I’ve been looking for some light weight, flowy dresses for the humid Ohio Summer.

All and all, it was a pretty quick sew. I opted to skip the elastic band, using some ribbon as a belt instead. I also added pockets, because I just really like pockets. I cut a straight 12, but I really think I could have done a 10, even without a zipper. Being entirely honest, I don’t think I’ll be wearing this dress as often as some other garments, but I still do like it. If you’re looking for a quick summer dress, this could be sewn in a day, though I’d suggest sizing down and maybe not using such a blindingly shiny fabric 😉

As for the maxi dress sew-along, I wanted to give you all a peek at what I’m sewing! I’ll be using McCall’s 7119!!!

There will absolutely be pockets on this, too.

I know I’m all about McCall’s lately, I swear I have other patterns on deck! I’m really excited to sew my first maxi dress, and I can’t wait to see what my fellows sewists come up with! Happy sewing 🙂

As you can tell by my limited amount on posts, I haven’t been blogging for very long! Since I’m busy this week doing lots and lots of mending, I thought I’d share one of my favorite pre-blog makes.

"Sewn by Ashley: a history of bad posing" — “Sewn by Ashley: a history of bad posing”

I love this dress. I mean really love. I’d sewn this dress with Amy from That’s Sew Amy. From cutting the fabric to finishing the dress, we got both of our dresses done in one day!! Now that’s a win! Not to mention, we were sewing these from the Frankenpattern contest., so there was a decent bit of “winging it”. I think sewing with others is just so much easier, don’t you? I find fitting and working out pattern issues are much less problematic!

So my version of this dress was a mixture of Simplicity 1426 and Gertie’s Pencil Skirt. To combine the two, I made the pencil skirt but omitted the waistband, and just added to the width of the bottom band for the top. Then I added a center back zipper to hold it all together. Easy peasy. I did size down the top, if you follow the pattern guides, I’ve found the top to be too loose not at all like the pattern cover.

I made this one out of a patterned stretch twill, which was fantastic to work with, and black gabardine, which I had purchased by accident. The gabardine was just meh to work with. This being the first time I’ve used it, though, it may have just been the wrong material for this project. Still turned out what I think is fabulous dress, which I am still trying to find a reason to wear!

Sewn by Ashley

Tag: Pencil Skirt

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