Hollyburn skirt

Yesterday I wrote about Denman College and the dressmaking course that I went on, today I'm back to talk about what I made. We were asked to take a pattern for a simple dress or skirt and, after much consideration and reading of various blogs, I opted for a Sewaholic Hollyburn skirt - partly because it's the kind of skirt I wear a lot in the summer, partly because it's for beginners so I thought there shouldn't be too much danger of me not being able to cope and partly because Sewaholic patterns are specifically designed for pear-shaped women - a group which I definitely fall into!

The material choice had the potential to be more difficult because there always seem to be too many pretty fabrics around, but a trip to a local material shop provided the answer, and here it is...

It's Moda Recipe for Friendship. I'd already bought a fat quarter of this to use for small projects and loved it, and this time when I went back it was 50% off - decision made!

Making the skirt was great fun, and surprisingly simple. Admittedly I did have the benefit of having the talented eyes of May Martin watching over me, but I'm pretty confident that even without that advantage it would have been easy to sew up this skirt as the instructions are so clear and easy to follow.

I chose to make up view B of the pattern - a knee-length skirt with button tabs on the waistband.

The bits that I was most concerned about were the pockets and making sure I had a nice finish on the outside so that it didn't look too handmade. I needn't have worried as the pockets were a breeze, here's a little close-up of one of them...

And I think I did a pretty good job with the finishing too. Here's the back zip...

And here's one of the button tabs...

I quite fancied having cherry buttons on the tabs, but I couldn't find any that I liked and I thought these flowers were jolly and would pick up the red of the cherries well, so they were what I went with - and I'm pleased with how they look. 

And the final result? I love this skirt! Partly because it's my first successful dressmaking project, but mainly because it's colourful and fun and I know I'll get loads of wear out of it (as long as the sun stays out anyway!). Here's a picture of me modelling it (note to self: must have better pictures of myself in any future dressmaking projects)...

I'm already plotting a more autumnal version of the skirt, possibly view C this time. Watch this space!