Chiffon maxi skirt & matching top
BELLA SARDEGNA
Ciao! We’ve just come back from our amazing honeymoon trip to Italy/Sardinia. (Sorry, for the photo spam, but the Mr took so many pretty pictures, I just had to share!) Just before the trip I managed to squeeze in some selfish sewing time and make something for my travel wardrobe. The dress I’m sharing today I made for my birthday, which was mostly spent strolling through town eating ice cream and reading at the beach – which is pretty much my definition of a perfect day.
It’s actually a maxi skirt and separate top combi and therefore was a great addition to my capsule vacation wardrobe. The fabric is a navy chiffon with a mint & pink bird print that I got ages ago at Walthamstow Market, London, in one of the dodgy shops at the far end of the market (a couple of houses from Saeed’s). It was only £1/m and I snatched up about 3 metres (140m wide). 
The pattern is more or less self-drafted. That’s because I didn’t make a proper pattern for the skirt. It’s a maxi half circle skirt and I drew the pattern right onto the fabric, no paper pattern needed. I had 3 metres of this fabric, which was just enough for a half-lined top and a half circle skirt. I would’ve needed almost twice as much for a full circle skirt, but the half circle looks great, too, and was much more practical to wear on a windy island. The skirt has a knee-length lining I made using some poly satin scraps.
I attached a straight waistband to the skirt and added a mint coloured invisible zip. It matches the print perfectly, but for some reason we forget to snap a pic showing the zip. The side seams are overlocked and I used a rolled hem foot to machine-roll the hem. As I wasn’t dealing with expensive silks and also had a pretty tight schedule I skipped the whole hand-rolled hem business this time. It’s ok to cheat sometimes, right? And to be fair, it looks so pretty and even, I probably wouldn’t have achieved similar results by handsewing.
The top is from the Sew Over It Vintage book and it’s the first garment I made using the book. I drafted the bodice block as described in the book (same as the Anita Tie Top) and shortened it into a crop top. I used two layers of fabric for the bodice front, so that the back is pretty much see-through, but the front not so much. As I spent most of my time at work and not the beach, some decency doesn’t hurt, right?
The shoulder and side seams of the top are finished with french seams and the armholes are bias-bound. I overlocked and machine sewed the hem. The top was really super quick and easy to draft, cut and sew, just one of these happy projects I need every once in a while to keep my sewing mojo going.
I really love the skirt/top combination and wore it loads on holiday. The skirt looks also great with plain white or grey t-shirt and the crop top looks super cute paired with some high-waisted jeans.
Have you made something for your vacation wardrobe? Do you like sewing garments for a capsule wardrobe or do you love stand-out pieces when you go on holiday? I’d love to know!
Charlie
Happy sewing!
♥
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The kit contains:
It was basically a rectangular, light-weight long dress that looked suspiciously handmade, but had some sort of label in it, so I’m not too sure about that fact. The dress itself had no shape whatsoever, the hem going way below knee-length. At first I thought it might be edgy and cool but when I put it on it simply looked horrible and I felt like wearing a potato sack.
The dress was too narrow to give me enough fabric for cutting out a whole new garment, so I decided to take the easy way out and cut the bottom off. Chop, chop!
I overlocked the raw seam and hemmed it by hand using matching gold thread.
Hello dear sewing-lovers! Today I’m sharing
I stitched the side seams up to approx. 15cm from the hem. I then pressed the seams open. The seam allowance is kept in place by topstitching 5mm from the edge, starting at the hem. I stitched up to the point where the side seam stitching starts, then stitching at an 45° angle, first up, then down again, forming a little triangle shape at the top of the slit. 
To be honest, I’m not quite as happy with this make as I hoped to be. First, the fabric. I have 3m of this polyester blend, which I got for almost nothing at a charity shop. The quality is really nice and I saved it up for ages. I finally decided that I had enough to make a top and still have enough left for a dress. Looking at the top now, the fabric choice wasn’t the best. I just really don’t like the print on it. It would’ve looked better on a dress I guess. I might use the rest of this fabric for the 
Well, it’s good enough to wear at home in the garden and I have learned my lesson!