Slip Up

In nice weather, I hang my clothes outside to dry.  My husband refuses to put up a clothes line or "umbrella" so I use a curtain rod he put up when he redid the deck and we thought a curtain would keep the sun out of the covered portion.  I have noticed while my dresses were drying in the sun, that they're a little ....see through.  Not really transparent, but just allowing a little more to be seen than probably should. No thongs for me, but still.

I've wanted to make a slip for awhile.  My old white one is bleh.  Dingy, dead elastic, and from about 25lb ago.  Cheap nylon.  I was sure I could do better.  I went searching and found some fabrics to choose from.  I did some burn tests, and while my white fabrics did appear to be cotton (the new polyester dresses I've made are horrible for static so I wanted a natural fiber slip), I went with this gold fabric that appeared to be a silk taffeta.  It was in a big bag of fabrics from my brother in law, off cuts and remnants from his work in movie and TV props/set design.

Burn test for silk--smells like burning feathers.

How am I supposed to know what that smells like?!

At first, I was going to not have the elastic waist, and do something that closed with a snap.  Because I have snap pliers and am not afraid to use them. I did go with the elastic because had it, and thought that for my first attempt I should stick with the pattern and it would give me a good practice run for lingerie elastic if I ever get around to making some underwear or bras.  Which I can't now because I have no lingerie elastic.

I was going to sew in a power mesh panel across the front.  But a) I couldn't find the power mesh until after I finished and b) I sort of didn't read the directions and had only one side seam.


 I read to have 3" of ease over your hip measurement. This created quite a bit of gathering in this slightly stiff silk.  I pulled the elastic so it felt snug around my waist, but when sewing it on, I just couldn't stretch it enough to reach my first quarter mark.  So I unpicked it and added another length to the elastic.  It is rather pouffy around the waist, too much for my slimmer dresses, but okay for the new polyester dresses.

For the bottom I just decided to go with what the fabric was telling me. I had no lace, I thought a hem would be boring, so I just went with the fringed selvege edge.  Why not?  I zig zagged across it and trimmed anything loose.

If I wanted to, I could actually wear this as a skirt.  I'm not a skirt person though.  And then I'd need a slip under it LOL.