Straight Stitch Designs Madrona Skirt

I was lucky enough to be part of the Straight Stitch designs testing team for the Madona skirt. The first time I saw Kimberly post this on her Instagram I was instantly drawn to the girly floaty front petal shape of the skirt and how lovely and unusual it was, THEN I saw she wanted pattern testers so I jumped at the chance!

I used this beautiful Vicose Rayon from Sew Me Sunshine with lovely dandelions on. I was torn between this and a plain mustard one as I thought the lovely frill may be better suited for a plain fabric but I did an office poll as we voted dandelions, and I can bu
y plain clothes not as easy to buy pretty fabric skirts!

The viscose has a lovely drape to and even so walking around is floats around and will be perfect for a spring dress or skirt. I don’t think I’ve ever sewn viscose rayon before but it’s very like cotton lawn to sew so nice and easy and not slippery like you would think a viscose is.

The skirt is super easy! It’s two pieces with a French seam joining the back then a waistband! I have decided my favourite method of creating gathers now is to sew elastic on so I did that again to create the even gathers around the waist. I just large zip zag a piece of ¼” elastic all around the top, stretching it as it sews, then when I let go of the stretch it gathers the fabric beautifully!

I made the waistband a little wider than the pattern because I found the most amazing button that matches perfectly. It was brilliant timing as I was making this skirt at our Sewing day at The Cambridge fabric company. When I popped upstairs to the shop for the elastic which I forgot to bring, I saw these ceramic buttons in a little basket on the till. It matches so perfectly it’s almost spooky!

In my excitement of matching buttons, I put my button hole the wrong way up! I put it portrait when it should be landscape but I have remedied this by moving the buttons along to where they sit nicest of my waist.

I can’t wait for the warmer weather to wear this without tights and some lovely summer tops (think ALL the Ogden Cami’s!)

Big thanks to my photographer Lisa for taking these at lunchtime on our day job, anyone else struggling with daylight to get nice photos this time of year?!