Hayley’s Mave Skirt
This fabric does all the talking, a large scale tie-dye print in beautiful bright and bold colours on a light-weight viscose that has excellent swish-ability!
Whilst I considered an oversized shirt like the new Closet Core Jenna (I’m itching to make that one) I wasn’t sure if it would give Hawaiian shirt vibes, which could definitely look amazing but wasn’t quite what I wanted.
The pattern and colours are so bold I wanted something that could just as easily be worn out for lunch with friends or on the school run, as it could on a tropical summer holiday or even a Mediterranean city break.
Enter the True Bias Mave Skirt. A definite “tried and tested” pattern for me, this is the 4th iteration I have made and viscose is the perfect fabric to pair with all the gathering.
The pattern has 8 skirt variations – 2 for a mini length and 3 each for the midi and maxi versions. You can play around with the addition of different ruffles to create the tiered effect or opt for beautiful simplicity and have a simple skirt, without ruffles, attached to the waistband.
I went all in and opted for a maxi with 2 ruffle layers which was a breeze to get out of 2.5m of fabric. I omitted the pockets – whilst I love a skirt pocket as much as the next person I have found in the past that for me they just don’t work in a lightweight fabric – distorting the skirt if you actually use the pocket for anything heavier than a feather.
The fabric washed, ironed and behaved beautifully – it is on the lighter side of a viscose but as the skirt pieces are all rectangles it was so quick and simple to cut out.
The fabric has a fun little characteristic – as a tie-dye print there were times I mistook the print for wrinkles in the fabric and thought I’d done a terrible job of ironing! Maybe that means I can get away with any actual wrinkles in it in the future and no one will notice!
The pattern includes a wide waistband that has a length of 1” wide elastic inserted into it which you then topstitch 4 times by stretching the waistband and using a zig zag stitch. This helps to keep the elastic from twisting as you wear it but also creates a channel for a drawstring if you want to add one.
The elastic I bought for this had a bit more slack to it than ones I’ve had in the past so I did check the fit before finishing the waistband and found I needed to shorten the elastic a bit, but really this just adds to the extreme comfort of this skirt as it’s not too tight around my middle.
Sadly it’s not quite bare leg weather here in the UK yet so at the moment I’m pairing the skirt with tights and boots and a chambray shirt tied at the waist but this will look so cute come the summer with sandals or trainers and a loose t-shirt tied in a knot at the waist.
I’ll be living in this skirt this summer, and the chickens seem to approve too!