Hi, it’s Fleurine from Sew Mariefleur, and today I’m showing you my new Daintree Skirt and my Fairelith Top – together they make a perfect summer outfit!
Let’s start with the Daintree Skirt: This fun little wrap skirt comes in three different lengths and is a great combination of casual and cute. It’s made of five panels, all cut on the bias, and has a slim waistband and tie to close it. I’ve made the shortest version and didn’t adjust the length.
Choosing the right fabric for this skirt is crucial – it’s not going to lie nicely if your fabric doesn’t have enough drape! Print is another issue, too: If you choose a directional print you will likely need a lot more fabric, and some prints might not work very well because of the different panels cut on the bias.
I went for the most simple solution and chose a solid fabric without a distinctive right or wrong side. The fabric is a sheer cotton fabric with a slight crinkle effect – I bought it a while back at Stoff & Stil. Using a sheer fabric for a skirt is obviously a challenge, too, but I’ll get to that later. Cutting the panels and sewing them together went quickly. I chose to sew the panels together with French seams since the fabric is so shear.
I left the skirt hanging like this over night, since all the bias seams might stretch. I adjusted the hem a little bit the next day, but the fabric hadn’t stretched too much.
The skirt needs to be hemmed before sewing on the waistband and waist tie, and I knew that the only truly beautiful way to hem this sheer fabric was using my rolled hem foot. It came with my machine, and I only tried using it once or twice – and let me tell you, it didn’t go too well. This time I looked at a few YouTube videos and blog posts before trying my luck on a piece of scrap fabric.
And to my big surprise it worked this time! I made sure to hold the fabric folded once before feeding it into my rolled hem foot, keeping the fabric slightly stretched and drawn towards the left, to make sure that the fabric rolled nicely. And it worked (mostly)! My rolled hem isn’t perfect, but it looks nice most of the time. Stretching the fabric while sewing a rolled hem on sheer fabric is a problem, and something I definitely am guilty of. You can see how wavy my hem is! Luckily for me, I absolutely love the waves, it looks so cute on this particular pattern!
I paired my skirt with a Fairelith Top – using it both at as a top and an underskirt. Since the skirt fabric is so sheer, I needed something to go underneath, and for this photo shoot I decided to lengthen my Fairelith to cover my bum. Making a simple underskirt, using biking shorts or using this skirt on the beach with a bikini underneath would work nicely, too.
The Fairelith is a raglan tee with a wide ballet neckline and a wide band at the neckline. It’s super quick to sew and I find the neckline very flattering. But it’s important to get the fit right! If the neckline is too wide, the shirt is going fall from your shoulders, and if it’s too tight the fabric is going to bunch up under your arm. Luckily Melissa included a tutorial on how to adjust the neckline width. I tried it and found out that my neckline needed to be smaller. That really surprised me, but I went with it and Melissa was right. I’m very happy with how this shirt fits now!
The fabric I chose for my Fairelith Top is an organic cotton viscose knit from NOSH fabrics and was given to me for free. The fabric doesn’t have too much stretch or recovery, but it has a lovely weight and is comfortable to wear. Perfect for the Fairelith Top!
The sun was shining while I took these pics (luckily you can’t see all the mosquitos hiding in the grass!), and wearing my Daintree and Fairelith together with my sun hat and my new sunglasses, I immediately felt like being on holiday.
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