Pocket Corner

I am healed! There was a period of about two days where I was allowed out of isolation (masked & distanced) but hadn’t yet tested negative, and I basically spent them prowling around the shady parts of my neighborhood feeling like an apex predator. Now I’m once again a delicious healthy zebra. But for a shining moment, the world had to wash its hands after seeing me.

Professor Boyfriend is also home and healthy, and our new fridge has ice cream in it, and the future is now, sweetcakes! It seemed like a good time to slap on a new skirt I sewed for vacation (“vacation”) because it’s official: I’m a skirt person now.

I have three more skirts in the pure-imagination phase, but I can already picture how useful they will be. This one, the Peppermint pocket skirt, is not only useful unto itself, but it’s also unlocked the usefulness of a lot of my summer tops that had been yielding diminishing returns. That includes my 7 remaining Ogden camis, a pattern I was wearing less and less for no clear reason.

This year I hit a sort of style plateau; I was bored by a lot of what I owned but lacked a clear goal of what I’d rather be wearing. But this skirt, and skirts generally, have helped me realize I was primarily Confused By Shorts (working theory). Ogden is back in my life! This skirt is a friend to summer dressing, and casual slight tanks & tees are its natural companions.

It’s also an easy sew. It is, in essence, a glorified tube. I like it. I like the saggy saddlebag pockets (I might be making a virtue out of a necessity, but I like to emphasize my hips). I like how the pockets slump into relaxed folds but stick out enough that my hands easily land there.

I like that it’s full enough to be muy muy comfortable but narrow enough to look contemporary. It’s a tricky width to find, but a good one to hit! Pretty much the only change I’d make next time would be to experiment with wider elastic. I could also add a little length to the back panel, since it looks like the journey over my bum is hiking up the back hem a bit, but I probably won’t.

I tend not to evaluate myself with a level.

I also like that it’s free! This pattern was designed by Paper Theory, one of those super-spendy British indies, and it’s a great way to get that disposable-income look. It’s a solid pattern and the instruction booklet covers everything necessary. I just followed along like a good little listener. I sewed a straight size 16, finished the seams as directed, and even turned up the hem the recommended amount.

Oh! I did add one line of topstitching to the waistband though, because I’m a free spirit (whose elastic always twists)!  

The fabric is a linen/rayon blend in the color “Thyme”, and it’s very nearly not a color. Actually I was such a conformist when making this skirt I tried to find a dupe of the dark-olive linen used in the pattern sample (sidebar: when did we start calling olive “khaki”? Isn’t khaki the sandy-pants color that Seinfeld wore?), but this grey-green is actually pretty versatile (double sidebar: thyme is dark green! This should be called, like, wormwood! It’s more accurate, and also awesome!). I started with 2 yards of Telio Silky Noil Washed Viscose and was left with 14.5″ selvedge-to-selvedge. I’ve already made it into a…something. You’ll see. This blend wrinkles, but the wrinkles mostly fall out with wear.

The pockets, which are, broadly speaking, the whole dang point, are actually wider than the skirt panel below them. That’s why they wing out so reliably. They’re also understitched, though in my floppy substrate that doesn’t prevent the inside from making itself known…but discreetly.

I could try using a stiffer coordinating fabric for the pocket interior to emphasize the shape if I make another flow-y version. Might be fun!

Oh and! Because all the pieces are vertically symmetrical, I was able to open the digital file, split the biggest pieces, and then stack them in pairs, which meant printing this pattern only took a lithe and lovely 13 pieces of paper!   

If you like skirts and you’re in the mood for a straightforward, almost-mindless win with lots of wearability, I recommend this freebie. I can’t tell if I’m over-praising a simple make because I’m euphoric to be dis-infected, but hey, either the skirt or the lung capacity feels good!

By the way, I’m trying to get past my style block with a fun exercise: picturing a self-insert Mary Sue who happens to look exactly like me in fictionalized scenarios (giving an interview! Opening a witch bakery! Cutting a foe, in the Austen sense, not the “Butcher of” sense!) and looking at what she’s wearing. Is it wide stiff mid-thigh shorts? No? What, never?! Then why am I? The parallel real-world experience to this is catching my reflection in an uncontrolled surface (i.e., a plate glass window) and then recording my own reaction (“OH NO”).

More summer makes to come. Thanks everyone for your comfort, commiseration, and TV recs! Stay frosty! ❤

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Pattern: Peppermint pocket skirt

Pattern cost: $0.00

Size: 16

Supplies: 2 yards of Telio Silky Noil Washed Viscose Linen Slub Thyme, $43.70; elastic, Sewfisticated, $0.99; thread from stash

Total time: 3.5 hours

Total cost: $44.69