Tuesday, November 11, 2008

a top and a skirt

this top is simpliciy # 3075 and was pretty easy to make. i worked on it mornings before work. i'm not sure if i'm in love with the purple ribbon, it was a bit out-of-the-box as far as a color choice. usually i would have chosen something more neutral and earth-toned. in the future i would make the longer tunic version, and i would also add an inch or so to the upper bodice/yoke/bust portion. the seam line seems to ride a bit higher under the bust than i would like.


it's not a maternity blouse and i fit it right now though i won't in a couple months. i wanted to make something for "me" instead of "me and baby and growing belly."

this skirt was insanely easy. i adapted the tummy panel from burda # 8097 onto the straight skirt from simplicity # 3834. the skirt is two pieces, the front and back, and the walking slit is just a portion of one side seam left open. normally the pattern would have darts, a waistband, and a side zip, but of course i eliminated those with the tummy panel. i still need to get buttonhole elastic to finish off the waist. the tummy panel was smaller than the skirt so i stretched it a little, which i think worked just fine since there now seems to be a bit of "ease" built into the top of the skirt.


this skirt was so easy i almost cried and i bet i'll be making more of these. i think i used about 3/4 yard of 60" denim but i think i could squeeze it out of the same from 45". i adapted the pattern yesterday morning before work and then churned out the skirt last night in about an hour.

both of these were relatively easy on the wallet also, as i had most of the fabric on hand. the gold print cotton i had purchased years ago for a quilt and then never made it. i get pretty bored with quilting. the denim my mom sent up last year or so. i just had to buy the ribbing which i had to get anyways to adapt a (future) pair of old jeans to accomodate the belly. i think i only used about 3/8 yard of ribbing to make the tummy panel so i have a lot left over. i think the skirt in particular would be uber-cheap to make since it takes so little material and zero notions.

5 comments:

Updated by Lila Huggins (grandmother) said...

Good Morning Eireann,
Wow, are you ever talented. I wish we lived closer and I could take a sewing lesson from you!
I really like the wedding picture of you and your sweetie. So much love in those faces. I must admit Eireann when I first saw your name in the blog list I thought you might be blogging from Ireland. I love any and everything Irish. My husband and I sold everything we owned except essentials, packed up our two girls and moved to Tipperary, Ireland 15 years ago. We had planned on living there for the rest of our lives but hubby got very sick after a few years and we had to come back to the states so he could have surgery. The Doctors were on stike in the UK at the time! During the time we were back in Georgia, our oldest daughter fell madly in love and of course didn't want to go back. We too, had fallen in love with our new to be, son-in-law and so we stayed. I was so sad to not go back and yet so happy for our daughter that she had found a wonderful Godly man.
We still keep in touch with all our friends in Ireland and they have been to visit us many times.

Are you Irish? Have you been to Ireland? Are you near your mom during your pregnancy?
Keep up the interesting blog, I really enjoy it.
God Bless You,
Miss Lila

eireann said...

hi aagin miss lila,
thanks for commenting! and thank you for the compliment. i have been sewing for about 20 years now and it has only been within the past few years that i have really started to feel confident about my sewing ability, where i could say with confidence YES i am a pretty darn good seamstress. pretty much everything i know i learned from my mother (and lots of practice), and i continue to learn from her. she's more amazing than i could ever hope to be.

no i am not irish, just a girl with an irish name (erin) who also loves all things irish. my sweetie took me to dublin last year and we loved it - when we were purchasing our house this year we very seriously considered what you did, selling everything but the essentials and moving to europe. we had such a great time that i am planning on posting about our trip with photos. i haven't scrapbooked the pictures yet so i guess it will be kind of like virtual scrapbooking.

my mom is about 500 miles away but we talk often and she is planning on coming up to help whent eh baby is born. we get to see each other a couple times a year. not enough, and i wish we were closer.

where is tipperary? we did not get pretty much anywhere outside of dublin except belfast. there was just so much to see in dublin and we didn't have enough time. we want to go back so badly.

Kelly said...

I really like that top. I love the contrast the ribbon gives.
The maternity skirt is also cute.

I'm mostly Irish and very proud, though I've never been to Ireland. But I really want to go. I too, have an Irish name.

Kerry is also an Irish name-is that just a coincidence?

eireann said...

the story my mom told me was that for me, if i was a girl, mom wanted a fancy name like nicole and dad wanted something plain like mary, and erin was in between. for ker, apparently she grudgingly agreed to mary but dad wanted it spelled merry. apparently after she was born, mom pulled the doctor aside and insisted that he change it on her birth certificate because she thought merry was dumb and she could not live with a child named merry, spelled like that. so it was changed to kerry.

i don't know if that is what kerry was told, mom just told me that in the last year or so. she always just told us, "erin means ireland and kerry is a county in ireland." so maybe ker has a different story?

on a slightly different note, my mom always wanted names that could be shortened, so you could kind of choose your own identity as you grew up. like if you were caitlin (a name i love but brian hates, unfortunately), you could be caty as a little kid, and lynn when you got older, or then you could choose to be just cate, or just caitlin. you were not required to always just "be" the name your parents chose for you but you had some say in "who" you were. i really like that whole idea. she lost out on that, i guess, because you can't shorten erin or kerry.

and, coincidence: brian is also a very irish name, carried by the high king brian bóru in the 11th century!

Kelly said...

Wow, Kerry is sooo not a Merry.
Funny how a post called "a top and a skirt" turned into a name dicussion.