Rachel Comey Skirt and Maria Denmark Kirsten Kimono Tee Take Two.

Front in seam pockets.

After reading the many rave reviews of Vogue 1247, and seeing the multitude of various takes on this pattern in the blogging community...I was persuaded to try it for myself. I will only be discussing the skirt as I have not made the top yet.

Line Art

Invisible zip

This skirt is super short. I added 10cm (almost 4 inches) to the length. This has still resulted in the skirt being quite short, and I will add more length before I make this again. I also added a bit of flare to the side seams to exaggerate the A-line shape.

Side view

Originally I cut a size 16 which fitted well in the waist but was quite loose at hip level. I took the side seams in quite a bit to fit better at the hip line. In hindsight I should have cut size 14 and graded the waist up to size 16.

Inside front showing pocket bags.

I didn't bother with using bias binding to bind the raw edges as instructed. I just overlocked the raw edges to finish them off which has worked out fine, just not as pretty.

Inside back

The fabric used was a non stretch denim purchased from Spotlight quite a while ago. It was really too heavy for this skirt. It is quite stiff and tends to ride up a lot when sitting, and is not very comfortable to wear. The waistband was cut with one edge along the selvedge of the fabric. You can see the green stripe along the edge of the waistband. I secured it by stitching in the ditch from the right side and because the raw edge did not require turning under, this method eliminated some bulk. The hem was hand stitched.

Maria Denmark Kirsten Kimono Tee

With the remaining white cotton lycra from my quest to find the perfect white T-Shirt, I have made another Kirsten Kimono Tee by Maria Denmark. 

Side view

I have made a few adjustments to the pattern to improve the look and the fit. Firstly, I lowered the neckline by 5cm (2 inches) at the centre front, using a french curve to redraw the neckline. When laying the front pattern piece on the fold of the fabric, I skewed the centre front slightly so that it pinched out about 1cm from the neckline and added 1.5cm width to the centre front at the hem line. I also did a swayback alteration according to the last method in this tutorial. To balance the extra width added to the hemline of the front, I added 1.5 cm to the side seam width of the back at hem level, blending back up to the waistline. 

Maria Denmark Kirsten Kimono Tees

In the photo collage above you can compare my first version with my second version, after my alterations. I think the second version definitely looks and fits better. 

These two additions to my summer casual wardrobe work well together and can be combined with many other tops and bottoms as well, making these very useful garments.


Happy Sewing