A summer basic: white pencil skirt

Hi, I am Lucia, I am a fabricholic. I buy and I buy and I never make anything. Here is to changing that!

White pencil skirt from Vogue 2043 by Isabel Toledo

Back in May, Sarah of Goodbye Valentino made the chicest little white skirt. The various ways she styled it made me realize what a great summer basic it is, and it was decided; I had to have my own. I chose a very simple pencil skirt pattern, from Vogue 2043 by Isabel Toledo. I love Isabel Toledo for her quirky style, which in this particular pattern is expressed only in the blouse. The skirt instead is just a very basic pencil skirt: two darts in front, four in back, narrow waistband, back zipper and walking vent at back.

With white fabric, transparency is always an issue, so I knew the skirt would be fully lined. My fashion fabric is a cotton sateen with a bit of lycra for comfort. Since it is very lightweight and to avoid having to finish the edges I decided to use the flat lining method. In hindsight, the fabric is not lightweight enough for flat lining and the side seams are a bit too bulky. Ah, well, now I will definitely know it for next time...

The inside of my white pencil skirt

I also didn't want the seam allowances and darts to show through the skirt. I remembered reading a wonderful article in Threads magazine long time ago on how to do precisely that: "Invisible Underlayers" by Lisa Shepard in Threads #96, September 2001 pages 50-53. Following her great instructions, I added bits of nude-colored underlining around the seam allowances and the darts and inside the hem. Yes, I know, this contributed to the seams bulkyness... so that is a definite minus. Another minus is that the nude color of the underlining I chose is lighter than my own skin tone... I don't think the difference is visible through this skirt, but I can imagine that for a translucent georgette or a lace I really need to make the effort to match my own skin color better. But the concept is completely sound; there is no show-through at all in the skirt.

Seam detail

Now, to be completely honest, I am happy how the skirt turned out, but these extra techniques made what should have been a simple and quick project a lot longer, and I just lost interest. The skirt lay half made up for nearly a whole month. Yup, that's me alright... Then, through Merche's blog Aventuras de Costuras I learned about the Summer Spark Sew-Along. Barely in time I joined them and that gave me the motivation I needed to finish my skirt. Woohoo! Thank you ladies!

Finally, the reason I made this skirt in the first place, versatility:

A white pencil skirt made with Vogue 2043 by Isabel Toledo

Hmmm... I still need tops in orange, red, maybe even green!