Snuggly stripy skirt!

As I dutifully hung the next laundry load on the clothes airer this afternoon I noticed my A-line wool-blend pinstripe mini skirt that I made last September. I didn’t remember washing that recently. Mr Ooobop! must have done…. uh oh…no… really? Lets just say it might now fit a small child! Bless him but grrrrr….!

It was my favourite go-to skirt for work, pub and well anything really. I don’t have many of those, especially ones that fit that well, so you can quite understand how I came close to a complete paddy! Luckily for him, Mr Ooobop! is working away in Gibraltar at the moment, and is blissfully unaware of his crime.

Well… this discovery proved to be a bit of a revelation. I felt pain at the prospect of buying a replacement and realised that I haven’t in fact bought a new item of clothing in nearly a year. And the truth is I don’t intend to anytime soon. I might have made a resolution to refrain from other people’s challenges, but that doesn’t count my own. And so the woolly glove was down:

2.25 hours to make a replacement skirt with half a metre of woolly fabric, hemmed and finished to wear for Monday morning… and here it is!

Snuggly stripy skirt

The fabric, from Ditto, is the loveliest, softest Italian wool mix ever. It is 95% wool and 5% polyester.  It is a medium-weight double layer fabric with a slightly brushed finish woven horizontal stripe in navy and red highlighted with yellow and green. The backing is a fine twill weave in a blue/black which meant, best of all that it didn’t need lining…. hoorah!

I had bought half a meter on my last trip to Brighton, thinking I could get the same skirt out of vertical stripes (I was scared of the horizontal stripe) but I really and truly miscalculated how much I needed to do it that way round! And so it has sat in the stash waiting its fate. Waiting to be an even better version of the last, so it turns out!

Very nearly matching up stripes either side of the zipper!

It’s clearly not the most imaginative of garments and really there is nothing much to report on the construction, save a little tapering at the bottom this time, and redrafted facings, it is so simple. I do so adore those horizontal darts on the front. I relished the confidence I had in knowing what I wanted and that I could actually achieve it in given time. I love the fact that I used pretty much every last bit of the fabric. I absolutely love love love, how cosy and soft it is…and I think the stripes, contrary to my fear, look fab horizontally! What thinks you?

P.S. Apologies for the unimaginative photos. As I said, Mr Ooobop! is away in Gibraltar!