Concert pitch

Before I started having mobility issues, I used to get to a lot of concerts. These days, I'm not able to do that easily, and I miss it; indeed, I miss it to the extent that I organised a couple of concerts this year in the (honestly rather ghastly) New Town where I live. I woke up about this time last year and thought "this place is a dump - it needs some good music!". And when I have a thought like that, I'm inclined to do something about it.

And then I got the chance to go to one at the Wigmore at the beginning of October... which is where I need to explain about the Three Musketeers. I'm a very blessed old geek. I don't just have one best friend. I have three. They're all men, they're all incredibly intelligent, and about the only other thing they all have in common is that they're fans of the late great Terry Pratchett. We will call them Athos, Porthos, and d'Artagnan (leaving me to be Aramis, for which the only real reason is that a d'Artagnan in a mobility scooter would be completely nonsensical - my d'Artagnan is actually a great deal more like Aramis, except that if the Three Musketeers ever became a baroque opera, he would be the one to sing that role, because he is an outstanding professional tenor). Athos and d'Artagnan don't know each other and probably will never meet now, since Athos is sadly quite a lot more disabled these days than I am; but Porthos is friends with both of them.

So... d'Artagnan was going to be singing Bach at the Wigmore, and when I found out, I e-mailed Porthos to find out if he was going; and of course he was. I managed to nab one of the last two wheelchair spaces, and we arranged that Porthos would pick me up from the nearest major town to where I live, which he visits quite regularly.

And that, of course, meant I needed something to wear. I used to have plenty of concert gear, but I ended up losing most of my possessions following my near-fatal illness in 2016 (very long story, far too involved to go into here), so I didn't have any; and I wasn't planning to show up to the Wigmore in my regular, rather slouchy, trousers.

I saw the base fabric online and managed to nab the last three metres they had in stock; this picture doesn't show it especially clearly, but it is amazing. It is a black 100% cotton poplin with a metallic gold print of twisting and spiralling musical staves, so from a distance it looks rather like a nest of Oriental dragons. And what else would I wear to a concert, after all? Originally I had planned the overskirt in gold organza, but then I spotted that lace. Again, it's deadstock, and it was reduced from £17.99 per metre down to £3.99. So I bought five metres, reckoning I'd certainly use it. It'd have been rude not to.

Generally speaking I don't buy skirt patterns (with one exception; I did buy the Deer & Doe Fumeterre Skirt, because I like the shaping on that). To be honest, I very rarely wear a skirt at all. When I do, it's a maxi and I'll draft it myself out of rectangles, as I did with this one. This is very easy to do, but it does take a little thought with respect to the measurements.

So, for the base skirt, I cut two rectangles the width of the fabric and the length I wanted the skirt to be, plus a seam allowance at the top and hem allowance at the bottom. Then I cut another rectangle the width of the fabric and 35 cm long, and cut it down the central fold line. That was going to be my pockets. I insist on having pockets, and generous ones at that; for me, a skirt or pair of trousers without them is null and void. Another, narrower, rectangle made the waistband, which I cut so that it was 120 cm long plus seam allowances, and then two more rectangles very slightly narrower than the waistband made the tie belt (again, not that easy to make out in the photo, but it ties just left of centre in a large bow).

I sewed in the pockets and then sewed up the side seams, so I had this humungous pair of uncompromisingly rectangular pockets, which I tacked to the top of the front section. Then what I did - and I've never seen this done anywhere else, so I am well pleased with it - is I gathered along the lower edge of each pocket; so I still had this amazing pocket capacity, but I could reach in without having to stick my arm in up to the elbow. I will absolutely be doing that again.

Unusually, I did the hem next. Not something I'd normally do or recommend, but since this was all straight lines it wasn't going to drop unevenly, and I wanted to get a better idea of where the lower edge of the overskirt was going to sit before I started cutting the lace. Only then did I get the lace out, and, much to my relief, it proved to be extremely easy to cut it straight because of the way the pattern lay. The lace had a scalloped edge which didn't need anything doing to it, but the cut edges obviously did, so I made a narrow hem on each side and covered it with the gold heart trim. I then had to make openings at what would end up being the sides, so I could get into the pockets without hitching up the overskirt; I treated these like enormous bound buttonholes, facing them with some black chiffon I had left over from another project. By the time the skirt was finished, the facings were effectively invisible.

Now came the awkward bit. It turned out that both the skirt and the overskirt needed to be pleated to fit onto the waistband; I had originally planned to gather them, but it was obvious that that wasn't going to work. The cotton, especially at the front where the pockets were, was too stiff, and the lace was too springy (and not very well behaved in general; lovely fabric, but a bit of a challenge to sew). And they were not the same length, as the overskirt was intentionally fuller than the skirt itself, so they had to be pleated separately.

Well, as you see, it worked. Nonetheless, the waistband was pretty hard to sew on, not just because of all the pleats and the pockets, but also I have a piece of wide ribbon running just below the waistband on the inside of the skirt, the purpose of which is to carry some press studs to hold a detachable warm winter lining, so that it can be worn for all seasons. (Not having had time to make the warm lining before the concert, I ended up wearing a pair of M&S leggings under it.) So at a bare minimum I was sewing through four layers of pleating, plus the waistband, plus the wide ribbon (which was quite tough), and sometimes the side seam allowances too (with the narrow ribbon carriers that were going to hold the tie belt), and/or the pockets, and... well, yes, I did indeed have to stab-stitch. I think you'll agree the results were worth it.

So then I just had to secure the other ends of the ribbon carriers, catch-stitch the waistband on the inside over the elastic (wide elastic, so much easier to do it that way than pull it through afterwards), and make the tie belt. (No, I did not rouleau it. I'm 60. Life is too short. I just folded it together and back-stitched neatly all the way round.) And, to use a phrase that would resonate with all Three of my Musketeers... Bjorn Stronginthearm is your uncle!