{"id":6755,"date":"2013-10-03T05:00:31","date_gmt":"2013-10-03T12:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=6755"},"modified":"2013-10-04T14:28:22","modified_gmt":"2013-10-04T21:28:22","slug":"sewing-for-me-essex-beignet-skirt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=6755","title":{"rendered":"Sewing for Me: Essex Beignet Skirt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Oh my goodness, I am so blown away by all the comments from yesterday’s post! Thank you so so so much. I usually try to respond back to all comments the same day, but I got so overwhelmed and quite a bit teary-eyed last night that I had to go straight to bed. I’m now working on responding and I think it’s safe to say that I’m not alone in dealing with the pressures of perfection – Someday, I’ll have to tell you about one of my jobs that involved airbrushing celebrity photos (thighs were halved! Nose hairs removed!). Made me realize even Beyonce has bad skin days.<\/p>\n

So, moving onto my Thursday ritual of talking about sewing for myself. I meant to start sewing from my Japanese pattern books<\/a>, I really did. But I flipped through them and nothing was really jumping out at me. After some hemming and hawing, I decided to make a skirt. The Colette Beignet<\/a> skirt to be exact. I’ve been thinking…if I weren’t me and happened to be reading my blog regularly, I would think, “Blimey (because BBC is currently an obsession – I mean,\u00a0Sherlock<\/a>! But I digress….)! Doesn’t this woman make anything in color<\/em>? What’s up with all this grey??”.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I love grey. I think I could live in the color from head-to-toe every day, but even I crave some variety sometimes. But not this week.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Beignet skirt is one of those exceedingly satisfying patterns to sew. Crystal clear instructions, well-drafted pattern pieces, an end result worthy of a high-end boutique. I took my time with this one and delighted in how perfectly the pieces fit together. My lining has never looked so professional (sorry about the wrinkles and unprofessional photo – I had been wearing the skirt for a while when I snapped this photo. I’m sure I was a vision of loveliness holding my camera in my tights). I used Essex yarn-dyed linen blend in “black”, which is probably one of my favorite fabrics to work with. The lining fabric is batiste, I think. It was in my box labeled “linings” so I’m going to go with that assumption.<\/p>\n

I omitted the belt loops and belt because I knew that I wouldn’t really use them and it seemed to add bulk to the shape for me. The high waist makes my disproportionately long torso look more normal, which is a bonus, but it also poses some challenges in terms of tops that I can wear with it. Tucking in tops made my…well…generously-endowed bust very<\/em> prominent and I wasn’t sure that was a look I wanted to sport in public. Also, the skirt turned out to be a little loose around the waist – you can see how I’ve been trying to scooch the top two buttons so things look a bit askew. After testing out about 15 tops, this combination of a fitted tank and black cardi seemed to work best. And I added a stripey scarf:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Eh. Then I tried an orange one:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Better. And hey, how about a brown, black and cream one and try some boots?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Love! But the boots are too tight and I tell you, my calves would have died a violent, asphyxiated death if calves needed to breathe. Walking in these boots, unfortunately, is out of the question. Then I remembered my perennial favorite combo is grey with mustard and wanted to give that a shot (with boots that I had worn out in the rain minutes prior):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hmmmm. Not my favorite and the photo is blurry, but I adore that cardigan.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A quick word on the buttons: they’re from that fabric stash<\/a> place I keep mentioning, and they had a fun selection of buttons. Notions are exempt from my fabric fast so I bought a few kinds of buttons and some zippers. Good thing too, because this teal-ish color was my only option for this skirt since I didn’t have 10 of the same kind otherwise.<\/p>\n

At any rate, I love my skirt! I just need to adjust the buttons a little more and it’s good to go. Alright, I’m going to look through my Japanese books again and see if anything is more appealing now…then again, there are those stacks of Burda magazines I’ve never tried….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oh my goodness, I am so blown away by all the comments from yesterday’s post! Thank you so so so much. I usually try to respond back to all comments the same day, but I got so overwhelmed and quite a bit teary-eyed last night that I had to go straight to bed. I’m now working on responding and I think it’s safe to say that I’m not alone in dealing with the pressures of perfection – Someday, I’ll have to tell you about one of my jobs that involved airbrushing celebrity photos (thighs were halved! Nose hairs removed!). Made me realize even Beyonce has bad skin days. So, moving onto my Thursday ritual of talking about sewing for myself. I meant to start sewing from my Japanese pattern books, I really did. But I flipped through them and nothing was really jumping out at me. After some hemming and hawing, I decided to make a skirt. The Colette Beignet skirt to be exact. I’ve been thinking…if I weren’t me and happened to be reading my blog regularly, I would think, “Blimey (because BBC is currently an obsession – I mean,\u00a0Sherlock! But I digress….)! Doesn’t this woman make anything in color? What’s up with all this grey??”. I love grey. I think I could live in the color from head-to-toe every day, but even I crave some variety sometimes. But not this week. The Beignet skirt is one of those exceedingly satisfying patterns to sew. Crystal clear instructions, well-drafted pattern pieces, an end result worthy of a high-end boutique. I took my time with this one and delighted in how perfectly the pieces fit together. My lining has never looked so professional (sorry about the wrinkles and unprofessional photo – I had been wearing the skirt for a while when I snapped this photo. I’m sure I was a vision of loveliness holding my camera in my tights). I used Essex yarn-dyed linen blend in “black”, which is probably one of my favorite fabrics to work with. The lining fabric is batiste, I think. It was in my box labeled “linings” so I’m going to go with that assumption. I omitted the belt loops and belt because I knew that I wouldn’t really use them and it seemed to add bulk to the shape for me. The high waist makes my disproportionately long torso look more normal, which is a bonus, but it also poses some challenges in terms of tops that I can wear with it. Tucking in tops made my…well…generously-endowed bust very prominent and I wasn’t sure that was a look I wanted to sport in public. Also, the skirt turned out to be a little loose around the waist – you can see how I’ve been trying to scooch the top two buttons so things look a bit askew. After testing out about 15 tops, this combination of a fitted tank and black cardi seemed to work best. And I added a stripey scarf: Eh. Then I tried an orange one: Better. And hey, how about a brown, black and cream one and try some boots? Love! But the boots are too tight and I tell you, my calves would have died a violent, asphyxiated death if calves needed to breathe. Walking in these boots, unfortunately, is out of the question. Then I remembered my perennial favorite combo is grey with mustard and wanted to give that a shot (with boots that I had worn out in the rain minutes prior): Hmmmm. Not my favorite and the photo is blurry, but I adore that cardigan. A quick word on the buttons: they’re from that fabric stash place I keep mentioning, and they had a fun selection of buttons. Notions are exempt from my fabric fast so I bought a few kinds of buttons and some zippers. Good thing too, because this teal-ish color was my only option for this skirt since I didn’t have 10 of the same kind otherwise. At any rate, I love my skirt! I just need to adjust the buttons a little more and it’s good to go. Alright, I’m going to look through my Japanese books again and see if anything is more appealing now…then again, there are those stacks of Burda magazines I’ve never tried….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,35],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6755","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sewing","7":"category-sewing-for-me","8":"entry","9":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6755"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6797,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6755\/revisions\/6797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}