FO: Quill Peggy Skirt

After making my new Sailor Top, I found myself with yet more sewing time thanks to being sick for a few weeks (ugh,I know). Let's call this sewing time the only perk of that illness, lol. So it only made sense that I should make the skirt I planned to wear with the Sailor Top next, right?

This is the outfit I managed to make - and it's kind of ... eh... I mean it's not awful. When I first finished this skirt and put the whole thing together, I was really bummed. As I mentioned before I bought the top fabric specifically because it was the best fabric I could find to coordinate with this skirt fabric. The skirt fabric definitely came first - I love this print and the quality - and after a whole shopping day finding nothing else I went with the quilting cotton for the top since I knew I would have a hard time matching this skirt with anything but a plain white t-shirt, which just feels boring to me now. I did wear this out on my birthday (with my yellow Swedish Hasbeens) and a girl who works at Anthropologie complimented my whole outfit, so maybe it's not as bad as I thought originally. Anyway, let's talk about this skirt, shall we?

This is the Peggy Skirt by Blue Ginger Doll Patterns. I've made this pattern few other times and I always plan to make more. It's a great high waisted skirt with tucks at the waist and adorable pockets that gape away from the body. I did my usual adjustment of shortening this by about 4 or 5 inches (the pattern is made in a more vintage midi length) just because I like knee length skirts. No changes other than that since this is a fairly easy skirt to fit. The fabric is called Quill designed by Valorie Wells for Robert Kaufman and it's a cotton/linen blend. Guys, I love this fabric. It's firm enough to feel secure wearing it but so breathable. One of the things I like most about this pattern is that the skirt kind of bells away from your legs, and this fabric really helps with that shape the pattern creates. And it doesn't wrinkle as bad as I thought it would - yay, lol.

As I hope you can tell, I went to great pains with my pattern matching on this skirt. These large medallion shapes are lovely, but they would look like crap if they didn't line up right and it would completely distract the eye. I spent quite a bit of time matching up the design, and it looks almost perfect everywhere except where the side seams flare out. Technically these seams are matched as well, but the flare interrupts things. Since I had to choose what would match I went with the front and back seam and the pockets. You can see how I still tried to keep the medals in line in the above photo though.

The back seam I am pretty stinking proud of, lol. It isn't totally perfect, but at a glance that seam basically disappears - exactly what I was going for. This was my first time matching a print this large, so I'm really thrilled with my results. There is even a lapped zipper in that seam :)

Check out that shockingly bright zipper! I love doing lapped zippers for many reasons - they look so tidy and I find them more enjoyable to insert - but a big reason is for the opportunity for coordinating but not "matching" zippers. I had this acidic yellow zipper in my stash (can you believe it?) and it is the exact color of the yellow in the fabric. This is a metal zipper from the 60s, which I'm also quite happy about because those things last forever. So while no one will really see it but me, I love how this design choice makes the skirt feel extra cool. I know that sounds silly, but there it is.

And of course you can't talk about this pattern without highlighting the awesome pockets :) My hand is covering it here, but you can see in the earlier photo at this angle that I pattern matched the pocket lining (and it turned out really well). I adore these pockets, folks. Do they make my hips look wider? Yes. But I feel that you can see it's the pockets that do this, not my body, so it contributes to the design in my opinion. And they just beg you to put your hands in them as they are open all the time :)

And I couldn't talk about pattern matching without giving the best prize ever to the front waistband seam. Check that out, ya'll! I think because I haven't done a ton of pattern matching, I am always surprised and thrilled beyond belief when it works out, lol. I'm so proud of that waistband seam. I just feels like magic that it worked.

And some close ups of the details. I used a large acid yellow vintage button from my stash (which I love). And you can see that pop of yellow in the zipper here as well. And I just had to show that lovely pattern matching again close up :) I stitched in the ditch to secure my waistband, and you can just barely see the stitching if you look close. I also should mention that I hand stitched the hem to get a truly blind finish.

So that's my newest Peggy skirt :) It's comfy, it's pretty, it's pattern matched. What more could you want? This skirt really taught me that taking your time with cutting out can pay off in a big way. Incidentally I found a shirt in Anthropologie that is the perfect color match for the yellow.green in the print (and it was on sale!). Being from Anthro, it's a very detailed and different type of shirt - it's all eyelet and lace with a high collar - so I'm curious to see how much I wear it because all together this will be quite the attention grabbing outfit, lol. I'm still on the fence with what top to wear with this skirt, but I can tell you it will be worn! I love this skirt and I am determined to make my fears of it being a wardrobe orphan unfounded. Yay for projects that pay off!

Summary:
Fabric: 2 yards Quill by Valorie Wells Cotton/Linen blend - $9.70
Pattern: Peggy Skirt by Blue Ginger Doll
Notinos: yellow 7" zipper - $0.10, knit stay tape - $0.25, Pellons SF 101 - $0.50, blue thread - $1.50, button - free
Time: 4 hours
Total Cost: $ 12.05