Hey everyone, Lori from Girls in the Garden, back with another garment sewn from Minerva fabric. If you have followed me, you know I like color and prints. When I saw this beautiful, big, bold floral, I knew I wanted it. This fabric has the best colors, red, cream, blush with a background of a gray that seems navy. The fabric arrived at my house and my first thought was a dress and a dress would have been gorgeous. As I was looking through my patterns for ideas, my plans shifted. What if I went with two separate garments, have a dress look when they were together and then even more options with two pieces.

This fabric doesn’t have much stretch, even though it is a knit. So I treated this knit as a woven and went with Simplicity 8175 for the skirt, view C, eliminating the front slit. With View C, it is more of an A-line shape so the front slit wasn’t needed. I redrew the center front of the skirt, taking out the seam allowance and cutting the front on the fold. I cut a size 12 and I am very happy with the fit. I did have to do some stitch samples for this fabric, it did not like my universal 80 needle. I went with a stretch needle, helped with the skipped stitches. So when sewing this fabric, take the time to test the needles to find which one works for you.

The skirt has a waistband and pockets, you doesn’t love pockets. For the back zipper, I interfaced the seam allowances and used an invisible zipper. A tip to help match each side of the waistband seam with the zipper, do some marking. I sew the one side of the zipper, close it up and mark the sport of the waistband on the unsewn side. Open the zipper back up and I start with the marked area. Pin the mark to the waistband seam and sew an inch on each side of the pin. Once you sew this area, close the zipper and see if the seam of the waistband matched on each side of the zipper. If it doesn’t you have just two inches to unsew, if it does match, then sew the rest of the zipper.

Now to the top and my limited amount of fabric! I went with Butterick 6175, which is slightly cropped but has great sleeves. I did add two inches to the top, I needed to tuck it in for the dress look!

The neckline was just turned under and stitched. It works for this top, I did not want to use a facing or a band of any type.

I love the look of these two garments together, even though the fabric is so bold and graphic it looks good as a look from shoulder to mid-calf! LOL I plan on wearing the top with skinny jeans and maybe white jeans. The skirt can go with a multitude of shirts – colors including chambray, gray, blush and of course the white blouse.

I am so happy with my new garments and so happy I have many options with these two floral pieces.

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