On What I Wore For Valentine’s Day

It’s a week late, but I still wanted to do a post on the skirt I made for Valentine’s Day. 

Much like my Christmas skirt, it was a last minute decision (a week before to be exact) to make a skirt I could wear for Valentine’s Day. I choose a Simplicity circle skirt pattern and then for a change I thought I’d try for a new type of fabric, which was much weightier than I was used to. Well, as beautiful as the fabric was and as quick as I was in getting the skirt constructed, it turned out to be too heavy for my petticoat and had too much of a drape to put the appliqués on and not have them get lost in the folds.

I was so determined to have a skirt in time for the holiday, I went and bought more fabric, black broadcloth this time, pulled out my go-to pattern Simplicity 3773 (used here, here, and here,—I’m sure everyone is getting tired of it by now), and started on skirt number two. This was Monday the 10th.

I finished the skirt quickly, went to try it on only to find it was a fraction of an inch too small, and I thought I could fix it easily. It was NOT easy to fix! Because I used a triple zig-zag stitch on the edge to prevent fraying, my attempt to sew a little further into the seam allowance meant the zig-zag stitching showed on the right side and, of course, I chose to use the other stitch that works pretty much the same way the stitch on a serger does, so ripping it out became a huge ordeal. By the time I got it unstitched (Thursday morning), I decided I would just completely replace the panel. I spent the entire day sewing and by the time I went to bed the skirt was ready to be worn for Valentine’s Day!

Paired with my red blouse I made in December, a sweater that has a retro look, my Valentine pin, and a red ribbon in my hair, I felt I had the perfect outfit for the day!

I really love how the appliqué hearts turned out and how the metallic thread looks. (sorry for the poor quality of these photos)


The only thing I didn’t get to finish in time was embroidering more arrows along the hem (I learned that metallic embroidery thread is not particularly fun to work with), but I had enough done for the day and will definitely be adding more later. And, despite making it specifically for Valentine’s, this is one skirt I’ll be wearing year round! ♥