Inspiration finally struck for this meter of gold foil fabric! I made a top from it a few years ago, but this leftover length has been sitting in my stash just waiting for me to do something with it. So I sewed up this Bibi skirt from the Tilly and the Buttons book Stretch.
The skirt is so simple, folks. It’s two pattern pieces (a skirt panel and a waist band). The construction is straight forward, and fitting is easy as you can just baste the panel seams before you sew them up properly. A super quick make. Which is really what I needed – a quick win to break up the ongoing saga of my self-drafted bodice block.
My concern about this skirt is that there’s no elastic in the waistband. It’s made with ponte which is a stable, heavy knit fabric, so in theory it should hold its form, but I can easily see this stretching out over time. I guess it’d be easy enough to unpick and insert elastic down the road if need be.
The fabric is a bit awkward to sew. You can’t press it or the foil melts off (ask me how I know). It’s also pretty bouncy, so I’ve topstitched all the seams to make them lie flat. I also topstitched around the top of the waistband to get it to hold the fold in place, but for some reason I decided to stretch out the waistband while I stitched that (I guess I was imagining that there was elastic in there) so the top is a little bit wavy when relaxed. But that doesn’t really show when I’m wearing it.
It looks pretty great as a faux dress with the original top too (which is incidentally also a Tilly book pattern, the Tabitha tee from Make It Simple):
Maybe a bit too Christmassy for this time of year, but a good option to have in the bank. I think I may finally be sold on the idea of matching separates!