Tuesday, October 21, 2014

KCW Day 2: Red Riding Hood and the Lollipop Swirl Review

No that's not some kind of crazy new book title you haven't heard of, I'm just killing two birds with one stone with this blog post.  Yes it is part of KCW and again inspired by a childhood favourite.  I feel a bit like I'm cheating with this one really.  I loved the classic fairytales as a small girls and I now enjoy reading them to Miss M, I had several large collections of fairy stories and loved each of them for different reasons.  Usually at that young age the pictures drew me in as they really bring the story to life.  When the Red Riding Hood fabric line was released by Riley Blake I fell in love and it is this that I've used here in a skirt for Miss M.

This post is doubling as my pattern review for the Lollipop Swirl Skirt from My Treasured Heirlooms and while I received a copy of the pattern from the designer to do this review the thoughts and comments are entirely my own.

This cute bias stripwork skirt comes in sizes 12m-10y and has 3 different waist options (elastic, buttons or zip/button).  While I loved the look of the 3 button closure as Miss M is all about independence at the moment I went with the elastic waist for ease of dressing for her.  First impressions are that I was really impressed with this pattern.  It is very clearly laid out and for someone like me who has a bit of a love/hate relationship with printing and taping patterns there is the added bonus of very few pages to print - woohoo.  The grain lines are clearly shown on the pattern, which is particularly important if you want to cut your bias panel from a directional print like I did.  There are also clear instructions included on how to lengthen/shorten the skirt as required.  While I would usually have made a size 3 with 4 length for Miss M, I decided that since I was doing an elastic waist I could get away with making straight size 4 and adjusting the elastic length to suit her :-)


This skirt net together really well, the instructions for overlapping the bias strips for sewing were well described and accompanied with clear pictures.  I realised as I went to sew mien together that I had cut them all out with my pattern up the wrong way which means that my skirt 'swirls' in the opposite direction to the ones on the pattern, I'm calling it a design feature, lol.  Also I decided to topstitch the panels to give a clean finish.  The only slight issue I had was that my waistband was slightly smaller than my skirt waist when I came to attach it.  I'm sure this was user error on my part (probably some of those joining seams had a slightly smaller seam allowance than they should have) so I ran a quick easing stitch around the waistline and eased it in as required (there wasn't a lot of difference).

The verdict?  This is a really sweet, quick wee skirt with simple lines and the added interest of the bias panels.  Miss M loves it and so do I :-)




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