Pattern review: the Patti Pocket Skirt by Amy Nicole Studio

My first make of January is this skirt! 

I received three pieces of gorgeous African wax print fabrics from my dad at Christmas. He's a jazz musician and he went to Liberia some time before Christmas. He came back with loads of fabrics for me, my mom and my sister. He had a really hard time choosing which prints to bring home but I think he did a really good job!

I wanted to make a skirt and I thought this print and these colours lended themselves best. I think the other two will become dresses of some kind. Do you you have any suggestions? What should I make? :) 

I wasn't sure which pattern to use for a long time. At first I though about my Astrid skirt pattern. But then I thought all of the buttons would distract from the print? So I decided to go for one of my #2019MakeNine instead! The Patti Pocket Skirt by Amy Nicole Studio. I think the pleats and pockets on this design worked perfect with this bold print! In Amy's own words "Y'all African wax print and the Patti pocket skirt go together like milk and cookies!" 

I loved Amy's instruction style. She calls it her “assembly line method". It's efficient and it's very much like how we learned to sew in fashion school when we were sewing like they do in ready-to-wear-manufacturing. We always made the distinction between tailoring and ready to wear. For example you would want to sew as much as possible on your overlocker at once instead of switching between straight stitch and overlock machines. 

I don't like assembling this way for all garments but sometimes it's fun to move faster through a project. Since my sewing machine and my overlocker are right next to each other it's very easy to switch between them so I don't feel inefficient when doing that most of the time. However in a factory or in school they can be quite far from each other so you want to switch as little as possible. If you are curious about this method you should try one of Amy's patterns! She walks through the process beautifully. I like her illustration style on the instructions, too! 

I had one issue with this skirt and that's 100% on me. When I was piecing the side seams together they didn't fit. One side was quite a bit shorter than the other and I was so confused. It turned out I had skipped a piece of the pattern. I somehow didn't see the tiny top piece of the side skirt pattern piece so I had cut it out too short. I managed to add a bit of fabric (tried to pattern match as best I could) and then everything fit together! You can't really tell so no worries. 

This pattern is drafted for petite frames. And ladies that are 5'4 and under. I'm 174 cm (around 5'9?) but I didn't let that stop me! Since this pattern really only needs to fit at the waist I thought it would be fine if I made view B, the long length. It worked :)

I really like the length!

I cut a size 8 without alterations and when I tried the skirt piece on I thought it was a bit too big so I took in a few cm in the pleats to fit my waist. I think if (when) I make this pattern again I will try size 6. 

I used a regular zipper instead of an invisible suggested by the pattern. I didn't have any invisible zippers that would go well with this skirt. I also added two buttons and button holes instead of a hook and bar. I didn't have that either. I like the look of the buttons as well. 

And for the hem facing I used a contrasting fabric because I think that looks nice. Just an old sheet that had a similar red colour to the shell fabric. 

I want to make this pattern again because it's a great skirt that I will get a lot of wear out of. 

One thing abut the drafting I might change is the waistband. Since it's quite a wide waistband it might need to be shaped to fit me perfectly. It's just a straight piece. When making waistbands that are 3cm wide or less they can probably be just a rectangle shape, but if they are wider they might need some shaping to hug the body. These things are very obvious on my body shape and it's not true for everyone. This skirt sticks out a bit on top of the waistband so I might try to fix that with some shaping! (curved waistband). 

I would recommend this pattern to anyone even if you are over 5'4! I won't try view A though :) 

There are instructions to lengthen or shorten the skirt however so I might try to make a shorter version, but quite a bit longer than view A. I haven't decided on fabric yet... To be continued!

See you next time!

♥   ♥   ♥

Josefine

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