Sew simple

Recently I was asked to fill in a brief survey about what my sewing level was; and I was actually stymied. I had no idea what to put. So I didn't fill it in at all; but, having been musing on this a while, I realise the correct answer wasn't among the alternatives they gave me. I have advanced sewing skills. I just really prefer not to use them if I can avoid it.

Am I lazy? I did wonder, but in the end I thought, no - if I was genuinely lazy I'd have bought a machine a long time ago. (By which I don't in any way mean to imply that sewing machines are for lazy people, just that hand sewing very much isn't.) But I think, in fact, there are two things going on here, and one of them is that I do hand sew. This means that even a very simple top like the one illustrated (which obviously I have downloaded, because it's basically that Butterick top I was making loads of last summer, but designed to work for my curves, plus it's got a higher neckline - what's not to love here?) is going to take me a few days to make, so anything very complicated is going to take over a week. And the other thing is that, actually, for the most part, I do tend to like simple lines. I'm not a very faffy sort of person. Cashmerette did a jeans jacket and a lot of people were raving over it; and yes, if you like jeans jackets, it's stunning. I didn't bother with it, because if I want a jacket at all I don't want seams and visible pockets all over the place. I want as few obvious seams as possible, two outside pockets (maybe a few more inside, because you can never have too many pockets, but keep 'em discreet), and absolutely no zips. I've had jackets with zips, and I assure you that if I was given to strong language they'd have generated plenty of it; zips are fine on things like trousers, where they stay closed at one end, but with an open-ended jacket zip you have to fiddle about to get it to engage, and then half the time it catches in something. (I also hate zips on knitwear, but that's just a personal quirk.) Just occasionally I will go a little bit fancy, as I did with the concert skirt, but that's not really for everyday.

And then there's boning, often said to be the ultimate sewing challenge. Can I create neat boning channels with impeccable spacing? Yes. Do I want to? Nope. My take on boning is that if it needs to be boned, there's not enough support over the shoulders to keep me happy; I don't like strapless things or anything close (the sole exception being if they're knitted, in which case they'll stay up anyway, and even in that case I want something like a matching shrug to keep my shoulders covered). I'll admit I used to wear a corset as outerwear now and again, and I did consider making my own; but before I'd got all the fitting worked out, I landed up with a stoma, and corsets and stomas don't exactly mix. (And, again, I never just wore a corset on top. I'd always have something covering my shoulders. It's how I roll. And the corset did have shoulder straps!)

So at some point I'm going to get another batch of Cashmerette patterns printed off, including this one; there's no hurry, because at the moment the urgent thing is summer skirts, and by the time that stops being the case it's going to be Southbank tops again rather than anything sleeveless. This, however, is likely to be what I'm making stacks of next summer.

As for the skirts, the red one with the birds has turned out very nicely; thankfully the fabric is a bit lighter than the olive green, which is just as well, because the last couple of days have been stifling. My flat is inclined to retain heat, so, although yesterday was very slightly cooler than Monday outside, it wasn't in here. On Monday it hit 26 in the flat, and yesterday it briefly hit 27. (When it hits 26, the air cooler goes on; I'd use it more, because it is really good, but I'm a little concerned about energy use... though it does use a lot less than air conditioning. It doesn't cool the room appreciably, but it does cool me, which is, after all, the important thing!) But the red skirt has been quite comfortable - still not quite as good as viscose of similar weight, but close. And at the moment I'm making one in a black and grey paisley from Rose & Hubble that I originally intended for a kaftan until I realised that I had no idea how I was going to get both a pocket and an emergency Sibyl-inspection slit on the left-hand side and make it look good. There are only three metres of it anyway and it's 110 cm wide (I liked the design, so I think I snapped up the last of the roll), so I'd have been pushing it for a kaftan even without Sibyl-related modifications; but it'll make a good skirt.

What I've learnt from the red skirt is that 40 cm (so 37 cm net, because I'm including the seam allowances here) is about the comfortable maximum for pocket depth, so that's how long I'm cutting pockets in future if it's left up to me. Also, the self tie belt is really very long; it's over 4 metres, so I get a big bow that hangs down most of the length of the skirt. It works but it makes the skirt a bit unwieldy when it's off, so I'm going to make it a bit shorter next time. I could probably take a metre off it quite comfortably. But the width is great; it's a bit wider than the olive green skirt, and I think it's pretty much exactly right. The olive green one certainly works from the point of view of walking around - it doesn't hobble me - but it does make my abdomen a bit too obvious. Not that it's actually large for my size, but there is the fact that I need to wear a whacking great pad over it because of Sibyl, so it does look as if I've got rather a stomach on me if I don't keep things nice and loose in that region. So the paisley one is going to be constructed almost identically to the red one, but with a shorter tie belt.

There are lots of skirt patterns about. Many of them are a good deal fancier than my rectangles-and-elastic jobs. Fine if that's what you like (and most of them look awesome on the right person). But the skirts I'm making at the moment work for me; I can cut them out in two takes, so that's only one sit-down rest required (some patterns I have to be on and off cutting out all day), which is another pretty major consideration; and I don't feel any sense of loss or waste because they don't require my advanced sewing skills.

Sometimes, it's best just to be able to do the easy stuff really well.