One of the very first patterns that I bought was the Tilly and the Buttons "Miette" Skirt. I liked that it was a wrap skirt and that it had a tie at the waist! I'm starting to really love anything with a tie waist, whether its paperbag pants, high-waisted shorts shorts or skirts.
I decided to make view A with the large pockets in the front, because I mean... pockets are great and I could put all sorts into the pockets!... phone, mini wallet, heck even gardening tools haha! these pockets will come in handy! I chose a charcoal colored linen from Pure Linen Envy, a Canadian online linen fabric store. The fabric is super well priced and very nice quality in my opinion. I loved their selection and how they categorize their linen by weight. I used their "summer breeze" linen which is the second lightest they carry at 150gsm.
This was my first time working with linen and it was a bit trickier than I was expecting! Linen does fray a bit so I learnt for my next linen project I will do french seams to encase those raw edges. but it was a great fabric to press and yes it is very wrinkly! I probably will use a more drapey and more crease proof fabric next time I attempt this pattern as it does wrap around the hips snug and when I sit down it gets quite the creases on the front.
I lined the pockets with a bicycle print quilting cotton for fun, and then I realized the print shows up sideways once I attached it.... oh well. I didn't have enough fabric to redo the pockets so I left it. The Miette pattern requires 2 meters of fabric that is 150 cm wide, but since I was using a linen without a print I managed to squeeze the pattern onto 1.5 meters of fabric (because I had only ordered that much of that color because I had a different project in mind) after playing a lot of pattern piece Tetrus! Some pieces may have been cut on a slight bias, which is most likely a no no, but so far the skirt looks great and if there is warping, it is along one side of the waistband, but it is not too noticeable.
The pattern was fairly simple to put together for a beginner sewist! I like the instruction booklet included in Tilly's patterns. they are well explained and I like that they include color images. the pockets are super simple as they are patch pockets, and I think the most complicated bit may have been the tie waist and lining up the slit for the tie to pass through. mine was off my a centimeter or so, so not perfect, but it'll do! I am learning, so I try not to be too much of a perfectionist.
I did sew up the skirt as it was intended but when I was trying it on I just didnt like the way it looked on me. It felt a bit too rectangular, Probably because of my fabric choice and I am also short at 5'2. So I thought if I made the bottom ruffled that it would break up that triangle shape a bit and give the skirt more texture?.. not sure if that's the right word, but basically it made it less flat and triangle shaped. To do this I cut the bottom 5 inches or so of the skirt off and flipped it so it was upside down (to have the wider part at the top to be able to gather into a ruffle) I also had to sacrifice part of the overlap of the skirt to add more fabric to the ruffle, so unfortunately I had to have less overlap, but that is ok because I always wear little shorts or something under skirts. But on the bright side I now have made a hack! I make this a more legit hack you can cut a longer strip of fabric for the base to ruffle, and you can choose how ruffled you want it by how long your strip is.
Overall I am pleased with my new me-made, and would definitely recommend this pattern to beginners as it is fairly simple sew.