Updated Kilt -McCalls 2302 OOP

      

 I’ve had a black and white border print in my fabric stash for years.  It’s cotton with a little bit of lycra stretch.   I bought it somewhere online.

I originally thought to make a border print dress but the repeat is huge and, I soon realized, with the border at the bottom of a garment sized piece,  the design is sideways. 

It therefore stayed in the stash until the other day.   I was looking through The Complete Book of Sewing, Greystone Publishing, 1967, which I bought at a library sale. 

I saw this picture and thought  a skirt with a straight wrap edge, like a kilt, would use the side border of the fabric pretty well.  By the way, isn't that Susan Dey, of the Partridge Family and L.A. Law?

The only new wrap skirts patterns I could find didn’t have a straight edge.  The only actual kilts were for men.  So I searched ebay sewing patterns for “kilt,” and came up with this.  It was $2.00.

The border print of the fabric is wide enough to encompass a couple of pleats

so this pattern seemed good to try.   I decided to make view B and think about the final length later, once I saw how the fabric’s design looked on the skirt.   

A laundered swatch of the fabric turned out exactly as it started.  Here is a close-up of the border print with the laundered swatch that shows the width of the border. 

This looks easy enough.

 The pattern calls for a tab with Velcro closing, probably dating from when Velcro was a newer wonder.  I have doubts about this.  My skirt could not only pop open after a big lunch, but pop open with ripping sound effects.  I’ll make the tab but consider substituting a buttonhole or hook. 

Because the print is so bold and large, I had to think about the motifs.  Michael Kors, on Project Runway, has alerted us to the danger of placing unintentional bullseyes.  Also, there are certain portions of this pattern that look a bit like an internal anatomy chart from health class: 

Maybe I had a heightened awareness.   

While paging through The Complete Book of Sewing,  circa 1967, I also came across this unfortunate example of pattern placement.

 I don't know if this was a "do" or a "don't" but, inspired to caution, I tried on the skirt pattern front and used pins to mark places I didn't want unintentional bullseyes.

Initially, I wanted to place the edge of the wrap to include as much of the border as possible, 

 

...but that would leave the front of the skirt unbalanced...

...so I centered the front on the heart motif...

...which left the border like this.

After that, there was nothing left to do but tracing and sewing straight lines, lots of pressing and hoping for the best.

 

I tapered the A-line on the sides of the back.  Here is the work in progress skirt from the front.

And here is the pleated edge of the wrap...

Here is the flap area. 

 I haven't decided yet on skirt  length.... or velcro.  

To be continued...