Bicycle skirt

 I joined PatternReview.com a while ago, but I haven't really done anything there yet. Yesterday I randomly went to the page and checked out the contests. One of them is a pattern stash contest, in other words, perfect inspiration for me. I haven't done much sewing lately, and most of it has just been mending or minor refashions, so making a new skirt from scratch last night was a real treat.

 This is Simplicity #4036, a simple A-line skirt pattern. I think I bought it in grad school, but I'm not sure. It's been sitting around for a while. I got the bicycle flannel and this purple cotton-poly blend (I think) years ago in the remnants pile at Joann's. I knew I wanted to make a skirt out of it, but I also knew that I didn't have enough of it for a whole skirt, so it languished for a while. I knew I wanted to piece it together with the purple fabric somehow, but I was hemming and hawing over how.

I think it would have been cool to have more elaborate piecing going on, maybe with the front and back made up of panels of both bicycle fabric and purple fabric, but because the bicycle fabric is directional, the layout didn't work very well for that. So I decided to do the simplest piecing imaginable, just making the front in one and the back in the other, with the panel fabrics switched. I wasn't sure I would like it, but I really do. I also set in an exposed zipper rather than an invisible zipper because I didn't have an invisible zipper of the right length, and it just seemed fun.

The fit is kind of big because I made a 16 instead of 14. Next time I'll probably make the 14, but I like that this one is roomy and cozy, and the extra space will make it more bike friendly. Now if only the weather would agree with my skirt that it's time to bike! It was 20 degrees on the first day of spring. (That's Fahrenheit.)

You can read my review at patternreviews.com.