Victory Patterns Madeleine Skirt

It’s been quite a while since I posted – shame on me! Life has taken over a little bit, but it’s all starting to calm itself down a little now so I managed to fit in a little time for sewing.

Last Saturday I went to see my good friend Rich play as part of the Milton Keynes International Festival. He was doing a solo acoustic show in the acoustic tent as the other member of his band – Heliopause – couldn’t make it (they’re all playing in November in The Stables, Milton Keynes if anyone’s near by!). I decided on the Friday night just before that I wanted a nice, comfortable denim skirt and, having stuck together the Madeleine skirt pattern pieces already I decided I’d give it a shot! Four hours later – yes, four hours from cutting to finishing! – I had a lovely new skirt.

New skirt, paired with super twee t-shirt!

So, what about the skirt? Well, I love it! It’s comfy but a little too long and, as you can see from the pictures, I left off the braces. Unsure about the length I decided I would give it a day out and about to see how it went. it turned out to be a great length for sitting on the grass or climbing over benches and onto trains and so my resolve to hem it up a further inch has been curtailed. My next skirt from this pattern – finally, I’ll be making a plain black skirt for work – will, however, have that extra length lobbed off to make it slightly more flattering and practical.

The thing that really drew me to this pattern was the pockets. So what about them in use? Well… the pockets are fabulous! They are huge, if you can’t already make that out from the photo, and actually useful! They come together really easily and are the icing on the cake of this otherwise rather plain make. I followed the lines of topstitching to the letter with a triple stitch in grey topstitch thread for the outer line and single stitch for the inner. I have to say, whilst I was doing the topstitching, I was eagerly scanning the decorative stitches on my machine to see which one I could use for the next make! These topstitching accents could so easily be adapted to whatever you wanted to put on there – ribbon, piping, lace, you name it!

And what about the pattern? It was certainly an easy make! The instructions are well illustrated where necessary, there are full instructions on how to piece the pattern together and full measurements included. The level of detail means that even the most absolute beginner should be able to make it. Having not made it up with the braces I can’t say how easy these are to make. If they’re like the rest of the pattern, however, they should be a breeze.

Could do with a good ironing!