I finally finished my skirt! It's taken me about 880 hours, and I'm so happy to be done. It's a double circle skirt with a hem circumference of 42 feet; needless to say, the embroidery took a long time, especially as I don't have an embroidery machine and did it all by hand instead.
It's insane to think about how much time this took; when I started, i thought it would take maybe two months at most. It's now been about ten months of work, at a rate of roughly 1.5 inches of embroidery per day on average.
This has been, by far, the biggest project I've ever taken on, and I just want everyone to know that if I can do this, so can you. So start that big project you're afraid of committing to. You can do it.
I have made a THING, and I am very proud of myself:
Okay, so this takes a bit of imagination, but. I have taken a china pattern, and adjusted it for fabric. With me so far? Okay. It gets printed on two yards of fabric, which allows you to make a half circle skirt (or get two panels and make a full circle skirt.)
The white part in the middle allows you to adjust the waist, while the blue part on the edge lets you adjust the length. If we're doing a full circle, the waist can be up to 50 inches and still have a bit of white before the pattern starts. If we're doing a 50 inch waist, the skirt can be up to 27 inches long (mid-calf) -- longer skirts can be made if the waist is cut smaller.
What you do with it at that point is up to you. A skirt, a dress, a cape, a parasol, even a tablecloth if you're willing to deal with a seam down the middle. It could theoretically be scaled down to fit on a 58" wide fabric, for more of your tablecloth and tapestry type needs, but I'm a COSTUME designer, okay? I want a circle skirt that's patterned to look like a teacup, and YOU SHOULD TOO.
(For real though. I can get this printed, but the more I print at once, the less it costs per yard.)
Sewed a circle skirt for the first time! (first picture also shows a purse I crocheted.) I've made a few quilts, but no garment making! I used quilting cotton because I read it was appropriate for a circle skirt, and I used an elastic waist band because it seemed more forgiving while measuring out the pattern. Overall went well, but I definitely discovered a few aspects I should improve upon for next time! Maybe next time I'll even experiment with pockets! Either way, this will definitely be a repeat craft!
I started with 150 stitches and went up to 720 just before the moss stitch and then I used an i-cord bind off (last 3 are still on the needle) so you can guess how long that bind off alone took me (multiple hours)
Not quite sure yet how to block it
The front of the pocket slits will get an i-cord too, the back should be fine when I sew the fabric on
Since there's 45% cotton in the yarn it's not that springy-backy so I hope the way I intend to attach the elastic to the waist band is gonna work
The pockets will be attached to the elastic as well. Let's see how that turns out
There's a lot of trial and error in this thing 😅
Sorry for the bad pic, but it's all the light we have in our living room right now