The Red Bow Belt and The Crimson Flower Skirt

The Red Bow Belt


The Red Bow Belt is a really easy belt to make and I think it looks quite effective as well. I found it on the Tilly and the Buttons blog. When I saw it, I could imagine it going with a particular black work dress that I have. Overall, it's a really easy project that you don't even need a sewing machine to complete. You can find the instructions here at Tilly and the buttons.

I followed the instructions exactly and am quite pleased with how it turned out. Thinking that I will need to make another one as well, possibly in black this time though to go with some of my lighter coloured dresses.



The Facts

Fabric: Red broadcloth at $5 per meter from Spotlight
Pattern: Tilly and the Buttons blog
Notions:  hook and eye x 2 20 cents
Time to complete: 30 mins
First worn: not worn yet
Total Price: about $1.70



The Crimson Flower Skirt

I love this material, well the pattern anyway. Its so bright and reminds me of summer. The actual fabric is a stretch satin, not the best fabric to be using for someone who has really only sewn pyjamas in flannelet. I think I would have preferred to make a dress out of this fabric, rather than a skirt, but I have plenty left over so that is a future project. I just need to find a good pattern that will suit the material.

The construction of this skirt resulted in a death. The death of my mum's Brother over locker. It was 28 years old (roughly) and had a long and useful life. My mum originally bought her over locker well before I was born.

I am not taking complete responsibility for killing the machine, but I did have a helping hand. The main cause of the over locker's death was due to sewing over a pin and breaking a needle on the over locker. In my defence the pin was hidden, so much so that I had trouble finding the pin once I realised I had actually broken the needle. Lesson learnt was don't let someone else pin something for you, if they do, check to see if the pins are going in the same direction that you are sewing. Also double check that you can actually see all the pins. Common sense right? Well lets just say that sometimes I lack common sense, as I did not follow the above rules with disastrous results. After I broke the needle, everything went on hold. It took a week to organise another needle. Once Mum had another needle, someone (and I actually can't remember who) changed the needle over. Trev helped me get the over locker going and it seemed that all was going well, Then I noticed that the over locker was cutting off the excess material. Trev did some more tinkering and managed to fix the issue. Great, I might even manage to finish the skirt this weekend I thought. I had thought too soon. The same needle then decided to wreck my weekend by breaking again!

I decided that obviously, Trev and I had done something wrong somewhere, and that it would be easier if a professional had a look at the machine. So Trev dropped it off at the repairers. The repairer confirmed that the machine was fixable, but the part was likely to cost over $150 plus his time! His suggestion was to buy a new machine as it would be cheaper and easier. Once mum and I had a chat  and decided that it would make more sense to just buy a new machine for $500. So I did! I mentioned my new toy in my last blog, so I won't go into the details of my new love again, other than to say its amazing!

Once I had an over locker, it was very easy to finish this skirt, and over all the skirt was pretty quick and easy to make. I love the two big pockets that it has. This is one of the reasons the skirt is so drapey and not so fitted. It also has several darts and was the first time I had ever sewed darts. This was made trickier by the fact the material is stretch and slippery. Again not a great combination for a beginner. This material also is not forgiving on mistakes. It won't allow unpicking and resewing as the fabric will have obvious holes. Overall though, it doesn't look too bad. I am am not sure if I will wear this skirt during winter as it really is a light summer skirt. I didn't line it, although would probably line anything else I make with this fabric.

The Facts

Fabric: stretch satin at $2.50 per meter from Joys Warehouse
Pattern: Butterick 6007 circa 1980s, which included a jacket pattern. The whole pattern was an op shop buy for $1.
Notions:  zip $1, hook and eye x2 20 cents
Time to complete: 3.5 hours
First worn: not worn yet
Total Price: about $5