Ruffly camo

Project: Calf-length cargo skirt
Pattern: Simplicity 3796 (top-right view)
Fabric: Cotton camo

During our last DOS, I made excellent progress on my camo skirt and now have it almost done.

The good: It turned out looking better than I expected. I liked working with the fabric which is more like a soft cotton than a heavy denim. I was able to complete it in a decent amount of time. Also, I decided against a hem and instead will rough up the bottom to give it that cool camo cargo look. On the advice of Chelsea and, strangely enough Jeff, I'll run stitching around the bottom to prevent the rough edges from sneaking up the skirt over time.

The bad: All of those danged curved pockets! The more I did curves, the better I got, but that means the early curves are pretty rough. However, I do value the experience making two types of pockets.

The ugly: I think this must be a design weirdness. There is a thin tie-ribbon that runs around the waist band that you gather up and tie into a cute bow at the front. It was painstakingly created by taking premade 3/4-inch twill tape and cutting it into several sections, then carefully tucking the short ends under on each end and stitching along each long side to create long belt-loops around the waistband. Then another thinner twill tape was run through each of the belt loops (I ended up using masking tape and barbeque skewers for this) and finally tied at the front.

All well and good in the pattern picture.

But, in reality, when I gathered the ribbon at least enough to keep the skirt from falling off, it made this weird pouffy ruffle with the rest of the waistband, above where the tape sits. Not, I think, appropriate for a camo cargo skirt. The obvious answer (thoughfully provided by Chelsea while I was still pondering the incongruity of it all) is to move the ribbon up higher on the waistband. I'm not super enthused about revisiting the fiddly little thing, but I guess I have my next DOS project all set.

Wearability: Medium-low. I probably won't wear it to work, but I can see myself in it on a Saturday. If I fix the ruffle issue. Or wear long shirts.