The first WSBN event I ever went to was called “Sewing Cake”. Everyone was wearing a creation from Cake Patterns, and (needless to say) cake was on the agenda in more ways than one.
Wendy was wearing a blue corduroy Hummingbird skirt, and I knew I had to have one. Fortunately fabric-a-brac delivered me a length of blue pinwale corduroy, and so the Hummingbird was mine. In fact there was twice as much as I needed, so if anyone else wants to copy Wendy, let me know. Imagine a whole army of blue Hummingbirds!
I love it just as much as I thought I would. I liked the Cake fitting system, to make it easy to grade between sizes, and the instructions were easy to follow. The corduroy is lovely and soft, and I put some fun “travel the world” cotton inside the pockets.
There were two things I didn’t like, though. One is the huge difference between sizes, up to five inches. Just as I was about to start this, I ran into Joy at the bus stop, and she was in the middle of fighting with her Hummingbird, which she’d cut out in the size bigger than her measurements, as directed. Which turned out to be FOUR INCHES too big for her actual measurements, which is a lot for a skirt. Cake is doing a great job catering for such a big range of sizes (35 to 57 inch hip measurements), but there needs to be a better way for people between sizes to get a good fit. I ended up sizing down, and using smaller seam allowances to give me the extra inch, and it fits pretty well.
The other thing I struggled with is the shape of the bottom of the flounce. Caveat: I did lengthen the pattern pieces before cutting out, and potentially this might have contributed, because people I’ve spoken to who didn’t lengthen it didn’t have this problem.
Anyway the pins in this picture were put in when I was standing up, so that the bottom of the flounce was even. Before leveling , the sides at the back were actually 9cm shorter than the side seams, and the centre back was 2cm longer.
I redrafted the pattern piece based on these changes and came out with something much more like a semi-circle (original at top, new version below).
Anyway, the bottom line: I love this skirt, wear it all the time, and will definitely use the pattern again. Thanks Cake! Thanks Wendy!
sixty six stitches 