Hello! I am very excited to share with you today about the Alberta Street Pencil Skirt from Sew House 7.

I was really intrigued with this design. It’s been a few years since I’ve worn a pencil skirt so I wanted to come back to this classic shape via a handmade garment. One aspect that really intrigued me with this pattern is a non-stretch denim is recommended. I have been intrigued with non-stretch denims as an earth friendly fabric to use versus denims with stretch (that include man made elastic materials in the fiber). I have not worked much with woven denims for garments so I was excited to jump in!

I picked a lovely rust color denim for my final project. The texture in this fabric is so lovely!! I am very drawn to textures in fabrics. Being a sewer, knitter, and fiber spinner I find textures are a commonality across these mediums (which may be why I’m drawn to them).

I have not yet jumped into the world of handmade jeans. I have been admiring many other lovely projects out there. I currently have multiple commercial jeans in my wardrobe (that I’m mending as holes develop) so I’m not quite there yet with making my own (but I’d love to give them a go in the future). That said, I think this project is a great starter to dip your toe into sewing with woven denims.

I wanted to note that I used three sewing machines for this project (a Standard Sewing machine, Serger and Coverstitch). You don’t have to use three sewing machines for this project (you could use a standard sewing machine for finishing the edges and top stitching) but I used these three machines. I wanted to disclose that I’m a Maker for Janome. The Standard Sewing machine and Serger were provided by them for me to use this year. I purchased the Janome Coverstitch machine on my own.

Supplies:
1.5m Art Gallery Fabrics The Denim Studio Collection Solid Textured Denim, Scarlet Brick
Matching universal sewing thread
Top stitch thread
7” zipper
Glass head pins
Point turner
Marking pen
100/16 Denim sewing needle
Top stitch sewing needle
Woven, Lightweight fusible interfacing
Serger Thread
Lint roller
French Curve Ruler

Muslin
Size: 8 at the waist, graded to a 10 at the hip notch
Fabric: 11 oz indigo denim

I picked a size 8 at the waistband. I then graded on the front and back skirt pattern pieces from an 8 to a 10 at the top of the skirt to the notch at the hips. I found the muslin fit me well in the hips but it was slightly loose in the waist.

The skirt has four darts in the back. I find that I like to use glass head sewing pins when ironing darts (so I don’t have to worry about the heads of the pins melting).

I wanted to mention fabric weight for this project. I used an 11 oz denim for both the muslin and final fabrics. I wrote to the designer before I started this project to see what weight denim might be too heavy for this pattern. She shared an interesting note that even though fabrics list their weight in ounces or GSM, there are still variations in the weights when you feel the fabrics in person. An 11 oz denim from one supplier might feel different than an 11 oz denim from another. I previously assumed that fabric weight would be a standard across all the fabric bases out there but regardless I wanted to note that. She felt that the 11 oz, although at the higher end of a medium weight denim, would still be fine for this project.

I wanted to note that I also found that the weight of the muslin 11 oz fabric varied from the weight of the 11 oz Art Gallery fabric denim. I found that the Art Gallery fabric base felt slightly lighter than the heavier indigo denim that I used for the muslin (but they both worked really well for the pattern). This difference ended up working quite well because I tightened the waist fit in the final skirt. I love the colors and textures of the Art Gallery Fabrics denims so I would love to do more work with this fabric base in the future.

I love the look of top stitching in commercial jeans so I decided I wanted to topstitch the pocket edges with a mustard toned, contrasting top stitch thread. I haven’t done a lot of topstitching, especially with heavyweight denims. For this project I used the cover stitch machine, topstitch needles, and topstitch thread. I used a standard, all purpose thread for the understitch thread. I did some testing of stitch lengths on scrap fabrics to get the machine adjusted to the look and tensions I was going for.

To sew the pocket to the skirt front I enjoyed using an edge stitch sewing machine foot for this step. I find when you are sewing a pocket and don’t have the seam allowance to visually reference, it is handy to use an edge stitch sewing machine foot. I love the uniformity that this foot offers for even spacing all the way around the pocket. For the muslin I used the following spacing settings on my machine and I also used the right edge foot.

To be continued…..

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