2 posts tagged “panel skirt”
Last year I bought some ready cut material for a panel skirt mostly so that I could photograph it for this blog. I also gave it to Elizabeth so that she could make it for herself and I could carefully document its progress.
That didn't really work because Elizabeth put it together so quickly I could only get a photo of the skirt in its last step before completion and then Elizabeth went home taking the skirt with her.
Last week she quietly called me over to come and see the completed product, together with a head scarf that she had made out of the left overs. Elizabeth has always been a reluctant model for my project, but this time she was quite chuffed to pose for me. I really like the close up picture of Elizabeth's scarf because it captures her personality so well.
I have a bit of a problem - Since starting this blog I have started buying pieces of shwe shwe to make things out of, or just to look at, or just to photograph, or with the aim of making cool Christmas things out of. As a result I am starting to accumulate various bits of cloth that my husband eyes warily as the pile grow higher and nothing comes from them.
My latest purchase is justified however - It was panel week here at She Wears Shwe Shwe and I couldn't get the message across without it. I have since 'gifted' the fabric to Elizabeth who lives in my garden cottage much to her delight. I told her that I need to photograph her in the finished product once she is done.
So here it is - Making a shwe shwe panel skirt in three easy steps.
1. Buy the fabric
2. Cut along the dotted lines
3. Sew and hem
You can now buy specially printed fabric with the individual panels printed on it, in various colours. This one that I found is even printed on both sides so that you can alternate the panels with a plain fabric, or use the extra bits for the trim. Interesting to note though is that this fabric was printed at the Windmolen Drukkeij in Holland, and is not a local product at all.
The only trick in all of this is knowing how many panels you might need. My wonderful friend M tells the great story of asking a roadside tailor in the Transkei to make her a panel shwe shwe skirt. The dressmaker took one look at her and said "you are a 6 panel girl ".
I am a 'slightly more panels girl' than Sweet M and when I bought my blue skirt it had a size tag on it that was a rough approximate to our standard dress sizes.
If you are making your own skirt then as a rough guideline 10 panels fit into two metres of farbic. To make sure that the amount of panels fit perfectly without having to cut any in half, you simply move your waistband down a little. If you want wider panels, or want the trim to be higher or lower you can cut a bit off the top rather than cut off the bottom for your hem.
My skirt that I bought in Joburg at the new Fashion District, is only overlocked on the outside of the panels. The contrasting overlocking stiches look great, and except for the zip should not take more than an hour to make. (Perhaps I could set a time challenge for Elizabeth and see how long it actually takes to make from the moment she cuts along the dotted lines to the final hem stitch)
