Completed: The Kelly Skirt/Jalie 2921

I’m doubling up on this post – I hope y’all don’t mind. Just didn’t think either of these pieces deserved a whole post of their own 🙂 This is pretty basic cake stuff we’re working with here.

Also, this is a result of me waking up on Sunday morning and going “OMG I’M GOING TO NY NEXT WEEK AND I HAVE NOTHING TO WEEEEEAR!!”
(not literally – I mean, have you seen my closet?)

Anyway, I’d just picked up the Kelly skirt pattern and I was dying to try it out. I found this giant yardage of navy corduroy in my stash – I’m trying to stash-bust as much as I can before I overfill my sewing room with more fabric next week heh heh – I think I got it at a yard sale a few years ago?

It works great for this pattern although it is very STIFF… you can’t see too much from these pictures, but the skirt just balloons away from my body and stays that way. Now, I like me a stiff skirt as much as any girl, but this is almost comical. Next time, I will opt for a slightly softer fabric. I may try to wash this skirt a few times in the meantime and see if I can beat down the stiffness a little as well.

This pattern was soo easy to whip together. There are just 5 pieces, a little bit of topstitching, and a smattering of buttonholes. I had the whole thing made from start to finish in less than 3 hours. Now that’s what I call fast fashion, derp.

The only change I made was to not interface the waistband – like I said, my corduroy is very stiff. Also, I am lazy. I think it holds up fine, though.

I made a size XS and it’s a tiiiiny bit big at the waist, but nothing that I can’t cinch in with a belt.

I can see this pattern working beautifully with a wide range of fabrics, from a lightweight chambray to a nice cotton twill. Ooh!

I also made my top over the weekend, same Sunday, even! Before you get too excited – it’s a knit top, which takes me like an hour to put together. Srsly, I looove sewing knits. The pattern is Jalie 2921, and the fabric is this Coral rayon jersey from Mood. More Nard-Dog colors, sorry y’all.

I only made a couple of changes to the pattern – had to shorten the sleeves because there were REALLY long, and I also shortened the ties because they overwhelmed the shirt. There was no scientific method to shortening the ties – I just put the shirt on and hacked away. Instead of leaving a hole in the center front seam to pull the ties though, I sewed it up all the way and just looped the ties over each other. The fabric is too heavy to make a proper bow. I feel like this look is kind of jaunty, with the ascot and preppy colors.

I did experiment with my hems on this top – I found a bunch of wooly nylon in my stash that I’d forgotten about (oops) and I wound some of that in the bobbin and then did my usual twin needle topstitching. I LOVE the result; the stitches are very uniform and there are no ridges or rippling. Worked like a charm!

Since the cord was so thick, I used this fun quilting cotton to face the pockets 🙂 Isn’t it sweet? Kiddie cowboys!

As a side note – if you didn’t see the first post announcement – I’ll be in New York this week and planning a meet-up for Saturday! If you’re in the area and want to join for some fabric shopping, send me an email and I’ll pass on the details 🙂

Tags: completed, Jalie, Kelly skirt, preppy, Scarf neck top, skirt, top