CNN, my leatherette skirt, and Vogue 8750

I finally finished Vogue 8750, despite 125 students and the environmental hazards of nearly being hit by flying kitchen fragments on a more or less regular basis.

Here it is on me and in sort of a bent leg detail that is meant to show you the interesting seaming:

I managed to actually get this done by going AWOL to the sewing room and drowning out the sound of heavy equipment by turning the Sewing TV up real loud. I love the news and so my channels of choice were CNN and CBC Newsworld.


I did a lot of watching this guy do interviews:

Somewhere along the way, I made up a "what if" scenario if Anderson Cooper ever showed up here and decided to interview me about this skirt. Here is how I think that would go:


AC 360: We are joined here tonight by Babs who has just finished the completion of a not leather skirt at the age of nearly 58, a project she has been planning on returning to ever since she did that thing with the iron on her first attempt in 1978.


Now Barbara how did you train for this project?


Babs: Well Anderson I have been making skirts now for 40 years. I have fully explored the waistbands that are too tight and the facings that are too loose. I have made them in velvet with the nap running up the front and down the back and am sure nobody noticed. I have made denim wrap arounds with ties so thick they didn't make bows and I have done the centred, the lapped, the hand-picked, once with pearls, not real, in each stitch, but now work exclusively with invisible zippers because you can re-stitch them 8 times and the stitches don't show from the right side. I find this a plus.


AC 360: Interesting. Can you tell us more about this specific project? My team here did some research and most not real leather is referred to as faux or pleather - what's with the leatherette?


Babs: Well Anderson I went back to the source on this one. Since this particular piece was bought by my next youngest sister in that discount place near the access road behind the Winnipeg airport, my suspicion is that it is leatherette, although I am almost certain, about 87%, that she didn't grab it from the car upholstery section and not tell me. This one of my sisters is pretty honest.


AC 360: Interesting. Now tell me if there were any moments in this project during you really, and this is not an age-related question, doubted you would be able to go the distance?


Babs: Good question Anderson. I was a bit concerned about the curved inserts to be honest. Four of them, two front and two in the back. Those can start pretty good, but you know how it is, once that presser foot starts moving and you start moving those pins-in-the-seam-allowance out you can just see it advancing - one layer longer than the other, like the Wave of Doom - and you know that you are going to be left with a 3/4" at the end. But this is a pretty well-drafted pattern and that almost didn't happen.


AC 360: Yes but to be honest did you trim off any extra at the end of the seam? 


Babs: Can you notice anything in the picture?


AC 360: The pictures are kind of blurry.


Babs: Exactly.


AC 360: Interesting. We are running out of time here so in closing I have to say I noticed you didn't top-stitch the hem.


Babs: Good eye. I was going to but I was pretty pleased with my top-stitching, yes I know the picture is blurry, but trust me on this, and I figured a stitched hem would ruin the effect. I got some double-sided tape and used that instead. Man is that stuff slick.


AC 360: Interesting.  Finally Babs do you have any wisdom you would like to share with other women of your generation considering a leatherette skirt?


Babs: I sure do. First this is a cheap project. Second my leatherette has a very smooth knit backing so I didn't do a lining. It held up well at the Greek restaurant I made my husband take me to last night since he demolished my kitchen. Secondly, it doesn't show the dog hair and does not require ironing, I really mean that, and only used a rayon setting with a press cloth during construction. Third it is easy to maintain. The Tzatziki came right off with Windex. Fourth when I wear it I feel unbearably hip and cool and since I really am not either hip or cool I feel this skirt expresses that perfectly. It's not really leather either. And BTW this is a killer pattern - really slimming, makes this 18 look like 10.


AC 360: A 14. Keeping them honest.

Me in a leather skirt?

I have been fussing around with this pattern lately wondering what to do with it:

Your old pencil skirt is a really reliable wardrobe item. I was thinking the other day that if I still had them, I could wear the straight skirts I wore to my first job to work tomorrow and they would still be in style. How many garments can you say that about?


But from a sewing perspective a standard straight/pencil skirt (think that on me they are more magic marker skirts - whatever) can get pretty boring if you do it plain every time.


So this pattern caught my eye.


However since the real feature is all the neat seaming, I had a feeling that my original plan to make it in black gab just wasn't going to do it justice. But throwing stuff around down in the sewing room yesterday I realized I still have lots of that pleather stuff left over from the package my sister Dawn mailed me.


Bingo. I had a winner. 


However all I had to do was get my head around me in a leather (or de facto) skirt. Still. I figured it was worth a try. Leather is often pieced and it would certainly show off the stitching.


Stay tuned. Just get through the rest of the work week. 
Then hopefully you will have a chance to give this middle-aged sewist the leather look thumbs up or thumbs down.


At this point neither of us knows how this is going to turn out.