I recently made a Lekala jacket that is absolutely FANTASTIC!  And I will blog about it – but it is a blog post that will take thought and effort and consideration because it took quite a while to figure out the lining.  Feeling rather emboldened by my jacket success, I quickly moved on to Lekala’s three seam skirt pattern, number 5088.  This pattern is free, by the way.

The reason I was so keen to give this pattern a go was because of that “full hip” (aka pot gut) measurement that is part of Lekala’s measurement system nowadays. My body shape is short waisted and thick waisted with a definite pot gut. This makes fitted woven skirts quite challenging to fit. The fabric was wool scraps from stash, left over from this shrug. I had nothing to lose by giving it a go!

Considering that I made this skirt from scrap fabric, and stash lining, and a stash button, and a stash zip that didn’t actually match, can you believe that I actually hand-picked the centred zip? I can’t! I started off by sewing it in by machine, but it looked terrible. I wasn’t prepared to leave it as it was considering that the rest of the skirt was coming along so nicely. So I sat down with my unpicker, unpicked the zip, then set it in by hand. It was surprisingly fast to do and way more accurate, giving a much nicer finish overall. Which is a bit funny, because no-one will ever see it other than in these photos. I never tuck my tops in!

So, now you can see how it fits! I delayed this blog post because I wanted better photos, ones taken at the beginning of the day instead of at the end of the day when there were wrinkles from wear. Then I realised that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, so to speak, and decided to just go ahead with the photos that I had. You can see the fit from the front in the photo above. From the back in the photo below:

And from the side:

Now I am of course sucking my gut in for these photos, but I have to say that this is the best fitting straight woven skirt that I have made for an extremely long time. Possibly ever.  It was incredibly comfortable to wear at work all day, and none of the creases in the photo are fitting problem wrinkles, believe me. I left out the centre back slit as the skirt length didn’t necessitate it. The instructions are typical Lekala, so are all written and translated and can be confusing, but any good dressmaking book can help you with the construction of a skirt like this one if you need assistance.

If you haven’t sewn from Lekala patterns before, this free pattern could definitely be the gateway drug – especially if you have a shape that isn’t quite “typical”. Go on, give it a go!  If I can make a skirt like this one as a wearable muslin, imagine what else you could make!