Self drafted mini-poncho-sombrero-skirt

A couple of months ago I saw this fabric in my local store. I immediately fell in love with it, but could not for the love of God think of something to use it for, so sadly I left it there.

After seeing Kim's gorgeous weekender bag made in a fabric that made me think of this one, I had an epiphany. This fabric would look great as a mini-skirt! And guess what? It does!

I went to the fabric store, and in my basic Spanish I had to explain to the shopkeeper what fabric I meant. It wasn't until I pulled out my phone and showed a picture of aforementioned blog post that the kind sir (I doubt his name is Lorena, even though that is the name of his store) knew what I was talking about...  Luckily the bolt was not yet sold out.

If only I could be a fly on the wall, or read minds to know what the shopkeeper was thinking... I always show up there with pictures on my phone, same story at the mercerias/haberdasheries, where my favourite word is 'chisme' translated to 'gadget' followed by a vague description of it's use and/or physical features. So far, this method works out just fine...

I started looking in my pattern stash, but didn't find anything suitable. In my closet, on the other hand, I have a mini-skirt that I love, despite coming from the evil of all evil, ZARA. I took it out (it's about time anyway because it's getting colder and tights are permitted again, and so my skirts are getting shorter) and studied it intently for about 3 whole minutes and was amazed by what I saw. Raw edges finished with bias tape! And an ingenious facing, not sewn to the skirt but just cut out along with the entire skirt that gets folded under. An idea was born. A copy-cat idea.

So it was then and there that I decided to draft my own skirt. I browsed the interwebs looking for tutorials, looked through my course material of the sewing course I took 10 years ago and leafed through my pattern drafting books, and distilled my own method.

The result

 For those of you wanting to use the same method I applied, I made a step-by-step of the procedure, a tutorial if you will... With colour coding, which is unheard of in my chaotic mind, I'm really trying for you guys! I will dedicate another post to this tutorial.

By now, I know how to assemble a skirt, so no problem there. The stripe-matching could have been better, but all in all, I'm pretty pleased with how it worked out, I'm not one to fuss about details. Not on a skirt that will not see any formal venue anyway.

The zipper is just a simple slot-inserted zipper. 

My fabric has a VERY loose weave, so I opted for underlining the whole thing. I used a piece of brown Kona-cotton I had in my stash. Black would have been ideal, but as you all know, we do not live in an ideal world...

The insides of my ZARA-skirt look slightly neater, they are finished with bias tape, whereas mine is just fake-overlocked (I don't own an overlock/serger) with a 3-step zigzag, but I like it as is. I like the insides of my me-made things simple, a (3-step) zigzag or pinked seams can make me unbelievably happy, the whole RTW-finishing is just not really my thing, except on knits, but there it's more a question of function than of form.

And that's it. A poncho mini-skirt. Oh, and did I say that the fabric cost me 6.5 EUR for 80 cm and the zipper was from my stash, as was the black thread. So I'm off the hook rather cheaply...

Last weekend we went to see 'bufones', these are basically holes in the seaside cliffs that run underground from the seaside of the cliff and open up towards the upper level of the cliff. Wind and currents forces air and water through them, and they just erupt sea water. It was amazing! The sounds coming out of those holes was incredible and the bursts of water sometimes went up to 15m ! 

You have to go see them at days with rough weather, so you get soaking wet, umbrella or not, rubber boots are not a bad idea either, but so so so much fun!