A Little bit of Mabel in My Life

Or the moral of wilfully choosing the wrong fabric for a project…

I’ve been itching to try out a Mabel (from Colette) for a while now, and luckily it fits in with my new sewing rules (more on that in my next post), so I can totally justify it. I purchased two lots of fabric to run a couple of these up in: one, a lovely burgundy/ wine coloured knit, the recommended fabric, and one a beautiful, kind of brushed cotton (with stretch), but clearly not a knit fabric. Although it was situated next to the knits… Hmmmm, what can I say?

So, this is the latter. I loved the fabric, it’s a kind of dark brown/black with a very subtle, lighter brown and blue abstract pattern. I knew it was subtle enough to go with lots of my present wardrobe (another of my new rules), but interesting enough to stand out: the perfect combination in my book 🙂

And it sewed up beautifully. As usual, Colette’s instructions were great. It took a bit of thought to figure out which way round (and which way up) to construct the waistband, but that could have been more to do with my two children also occupying my sewing space (aka our kitchen table), completing their homework: cue a constant stream of questions…

The rest of the instructions were really easy to follow. I opted for the pencil skirt version as I’d seen a few mini versions around and knew they’d be too short for me. I’m glad I did too, as even this version came up a little short. I’ll definitely add an extra inch or so to my next version.

I really liked the outcome, however because of my daft choice of fabric let’s say it’s a little ‘interesting’ getting it on…It does have stretch, but there was no way it was going to pull up over my hips, so over the head it was! And it just about pulls down over my bust, with a fair bit of wriggling. Oh, and getting it off requires two people, so not really one for consuming any alcohol in too late at night! Unless, of course I want to sleep in it… My husband helpfully suggested that a zip would have helped, he did have a point, but he quickly realised that pointing out the obvious wasn’t such a good idea 😉

It’s comfy once it’s on, so there’s that… But because of the relatively low stretch content, it does look like it’s pulling across the front a little and it tends to ride up whilst wearing it. Fingers crossed that in the right fabric this will be the perfect size and fit, as a real knit will have a lot more ‘give’, but I will include that extra inch in length. Second time lucky?

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