a little weekend sewing project: silk crepe tank & brocade skirt

after being sick all last week and doing literally nothing, on saturday i remembered that, oh yeah, a childhood friend was getting married the next day, and organizing something to wear was to have been the previous weekend's activity, except i just slept all day and night instead. oops.

so, what to do? dig into the stash, and see what i could find.

i had just enough of this lovely blue chinese silk/rayon brocade to make a skirt, and magically came up with a scrap of silk crepe in a coordinating blue. i think it was from a remnant bin, or maybe the textile museum sale? in any case, there was barely half a metre of it!

i managed to locate a zipper of the right sort & size and some bemberg to line the skirt, so that wasn't too hard. the real trick: what to do with that scrap of crepe? that wouldn't take any extra effort or fabric?

the solution, was to make a super simple tank.

i did this in the quickest way i could think of with the least amount of fabric and finishing:

first, i simply folded the fabric in half, selvedge edges together.

using the folded edge as the "shoulder seam" (except i didn't have to do the seam, ha) i cut out armscyes and the neck hole (a boat neck wide enough to go over my head, no fasteners needed).

then, i sewed down the side seams, from armscye to the selvedge edge (which i used as a hem - no fraying, not visible, so no finishing required). i did a french seam, being the most sturdy-yet-nice-looking seam i know, which also requires no hand finishing.

then i rolled the edges at the neck and armscye, and finished those by hand which took all of till the clouds roll by, which you can watch for free on youtube. it's a jerome kern biopic, a bit maudlin and drippy, but gorgeous costumes, and of course lots of spectacular musical numbers. everyone is in this flick: judy garland, frank sinatra, lena horne, june allyson, van johnson, dinah shore, syd charisse, angela lansbury, van heflin, esther williams!

that's it, that's all! it was more effort getting the kid to dress up with me.