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Sewing a spiral skirt with lined princess bodice jumper
This Spiral Jumper pattern is not a beginner's pattern. Of course, I made my life a bit more difficult by choosing an obviously diagonal material! Yes, for a spiral skirt with a princess top, I decided to complicate it even more. The material just called out so much, though, in the end I'm glad I did.
First off, prep work is not my favorite, and there was a lot of interfacing to prepare the bodice and placket. However, the area to be interfaced on the bodice and plackets is well marked, making it somewhat easier. I used a fusible woven interfacing, as recommended by Birch Street Clothing. Here I will show you some mistakes I made, so hopefully you won't make the same mistakes!
Assembling the Bodice
First, in cutting the bodice placket, I had the pattern piece on a folded piece of face to face fabric. Instead of just cutting with one of the extensions and realizing that this would yield one right and one left extension, I cut one of each extension. However, since the fabric was face to face that gave me two pieces with the same side extension. Luckily I had some extra fabric to cut again.
Don't do this. If you're cutting double face to face fabric, cut with one side of the extension pattern for both sides.
Now, if you have a pattern you want to match up, don't forget that you need overlap (more experienced sewers are by now nodding their head remembering the first time they did something so silly as to choose a diagonal fabric for a princess bodice).
Don't do this. See how the diagonals are lined up to meet exactly at the center, but with no overlap? You need to play with the pattern until you get the overlap at center front, where your bodice pieces will meet once sewn.
I also felt that the instructions for double interfacing on both sides of the bodice would make the final product too thick for the snaps to grip. So I single interfaced the center front area on both facing and bodice front.
Picture of bodice front and lining with interfacing.
Assembling the Skirt
For cutting the spiral skirt, I used the stack cutting that I used on the girls' spiral skirt for all but two of the spirals. The other two spirals need an extension, so I cut each one separately. Do cut them separately so that your extension comes out one on each side.
Cutting the spirals for the jumper skirt.
Finishing the Jumper
After the prep work, assembly went well. The material I used is a synthetic winter weight knit, so the princess seam went easily. I've made the spiral skirt enough that sewing the spirals went together in a flash. Attaching the bodice to skirt went fine, and then Birch Street has instructions for a method I'd never had before for closing off the bodice lining. Instead of just turning under the lining and stitching to the waist seam, the instructions have you roll up the skirt inside the bodice and sew right side to right side the lining to the waist. Well, the skirt is HUGE, so it was a challenge, but it does look very nice when finished this way.
I skipped the top stitching of the bodice. The instructions for finishing the skirt placket were easy to follow, and the finished product is really comfortable. I made a matching snood to finish off the outfit. The nice thing about the jumper vs. the spiral skirt is that the jumper essentially gives you a complete outfit once you match a blouse or shirt under it. The skirt alone is tons easier, but then you have only the skirt.
This pattern comes on tissue paper with sizes XS to XL. It's a great value, and a lovely modest outfit. You can purchase it at Create for Less
, or Birch Street Clothing.
