Hello all! My lovely friend MK gifted me this silver fabric for my birthday last month. It took a bit of umming and arring to decided what I wanted to do with it because it's very delicate. If stretched it ladders instantly.
I decided to go for a gathered circle skirt, which is a fairly simple make, and doesn't require any stretch. I used the circle skirt calculator from By Hand London to see what the biggest radius I could get was, while maintaining the length. Ideally, it would be a bit fuller at the waist and a tad longer but I'm quite happy with the gathers I did get.
The fabric was stabilised at the waistband with waistband interfacing and I put in an invisible zip in right to the top of the waistband. A light grey zip would have ideally been better than the black but it's what I had 'in stock'. After the zip was installed the skirt was somehow too big, so I pinched the room equally out of each side, sewing down the width of the waistband.
Then all that was left to do was the hemming! When I cut out the circle skirt the fabric was a nightmare, I couldn't get 2 layers to sit flat on top of one another at all. In the end I ended up cutting out just the circle for the waist and a centre back seam, then trimming the hem on a single layer after it was left to hang for a few days.
The fabric is very thin, and very static. You can see below the hem of my top forming a ridge. Perhaps a half slip would sort this out, or pairing it with a bodysuit would work fabulously.
The original plan was to add a bodice to the skirt, but everything I draped was just silver overload so I left it as it was. I wanted to wear it out on Friday night but everything I tried on with it just looked wrong! I do quite like it paired with this black polo-neck though for a more casual look. I'm intrigued to see how well the skirt would pair with a sheer white button-down shirt, but I don't own one of those at present so will have to keep a look out for the right fabric. All in all, it's very snazzy and I love it.
Thanks very much for reading and to Rachel for taking the photos!
Lauren xx
