Esther’s Sabina Skirt

Esther received August’s Classic Box and with it the gold spot double gauze. She used her 2.5m to make a Sabina Skirt, a free pattern from The Little Pomegranate

This has been a very stressful season for me. I’m in the process of moving house, who knew how much stress went into buying a house solo? Anyway, my emotions have been all over the place and I just haven’t had enough time for other things. I saw a quote the other day that had mentioned making time for things that made your soul happy. In the midst of the chaos of boxes, living between two houses and all other hurdles adulting throws one’s way; I was so excited to receive this month’s box as I knew it would give me an excuse to take some time to sew.

I fell straight in love with this fabric. The colour is just superb. I absolutely love the gold speckles in the fabric. I knew I wanted to make something beautiful but with all that is going on, I was looking to sew something that would take minimal effort but I still wanted a great piece of clothing.

As we settle more into the summer and have hotter days, I realise just how lacking my summer wardrobe is. I just don’t have enough garments that one would class as secret pyjamas. The more I thought about my wardrobe, the more I realised that there are barely any casual skirts in my wardrobe. The beauty of sewing is once you identify a gap in your wardrobe, you can quickly go about filling it.

I started thinking of what I wanted as a summer skirt and all that came was I wanted it midi length. I instantly gravitated towards a basic gathered skirt but two problems came up for me. First, I find that I like the volume a gathered skirt gives but I hate the bulk at the waist line so I was thinking of more of an A-line shape gathered skirt. Second, my waist line seems to be increasing in direct proportion to my stress levels. Ha ha! Simply put, I eat more when I’m busy. As such, I didn’t want a skirt with a fitted waistband.

By a stroke of luck, I saw the Sabina pattern by The Little Pomegranate and it fit the bill! The pattern is even better than what I had in mind. In addition to the A-line shape and elastic waist, there are roomy pockets and a ruffle at the hem. I really wanted to make the pattern as is but as I had a limited time, I decided to make the skirt as basic as possible.

My make eliminates the pockets and the hem ruffles. Making it such a fast sew. The fabric was so awesome to deal with. I decided for the first time since I’ve been sewing with cotton gauze not to press it and just cut out the fabric as it was out of the wash. This means I won’t have to iron my skirt in the future, which is a major win for me. As a sewist I press all day, it’s part of the sewing job so I don’t mind it but once a garment is made, I avoid the iron as much as I can. I am glad to have a nice easy to wear skirt for these very warm days. I also love that this is a piece that can be layered up as it gets colder.