McCall's 4970: the cotton eyelet skirt / jupe en broderie anglaise

McCall's 4970: ivory eyelet bias skirt / Jupe en broderie anglaise sur le biais

Hi everybody! Some fabrics just say summer, and cotton eyelet is definitely one of them in my opinion. For this month's post I played with a gorgeous ivory eyelet and made a bias skirt using McCall's 4970, a pattern with 3 lovely skirt options.

The fabric

For this summer I wanted something in eyelet and I could have chosen one pattern or another as this fabric is just right for so many things: tops, dresses, blouses, skirts, even shorts. The base is a very fine quality ivory cotton lawn, and the embroidered pattern goes vertically. It sewed and pressed beautifully!

I received this gorgeous fabric as my monthly fabric allowance for the Made By A Fabricista blog I contribute to once a month. If you want to have a look, the original blogpost is here.

McCall's 4970: I made view B / J'ai fait la vue B

The pattern

McCall's M4970 has probably been aging in my stash since the pattern came out in 2005! Oddly, I could only find one version of it on the internet. I hope my version can serve as another reference if anyone should want to make this skirt.

For a moment I envisioned to make a tiered skirt, an obvious choice with eyelet, but wanting a little more visual interest in the end I selected McCall's 4970 view B and cut a size 10, my usual with the Big Four. The design change I made was to cut the center of the front and back pieces to add a center seam, and place the vertical lines of the embroidery on the bias to form chevrons. I also debated whether to place the zipper on the side as per the pattern, but finally decided to put it in the back.

I was worried that the invisible zipper would cause bumps and wavy seams as it is sewn to a fabric piece on the bias. Inserting zippers on the bias is never something I look forward to, even more so when there's a pattern to match! But since the embroidery adds substance to the cotton lawn it came out surprisingly well, and I was able to match the chevrons without any fuss I must say. I almost patted myself on my back when I saw the result!

McCall's 4970 back view - the invisible zipper is inserted in the CB seam / Vue de dos - le zip invisible est inséré dans la couture milieu dos

Close-up showing texture of fabric + invisible zipper / Close up montrant la texture de la broderie anglaise et le zip invisible

I finished the top and bottom of the ruffle with a narrow 3 thread rolled hem on the serger, using ivory Mettler silk finish cotton thread to match the eyelet fabric.

I could have lined the skirt, but decided to leave it unlined and to wear a skin tone slip underneath instead. 

That skirt is breezy and summery and it lifts my spirits to have a new summer garment in my wardrobe! I've always loved eyelet but I don't recall working with that fabric a lot in the past. I'm quite happy I experimented with eyelet for this month's make and I hope to wear that skirt all summer!

I'll leave it here for now - I hope you are enjoying the weather and are finding time for sewing summer garments! What do you make with eyelet fabric?

Virginie