Mortem's Tricks or Treats: Butterick 5566

My visit back home to Canada has come and gone, and now I sit here wide awake nearing yet another conscious visit of the witching hour of the night, picking at tiny but bothersome skin tag on my neck.

I can scarcely believe that just a couple days ago I was having a nice visit with my momma, and celebrating my SIL's graduation with the whole lot of in laws and beyond. While it was great spending time with direct and extended family, I regret that my time was quite limited for old friends-- I didn't get to see most of them, and I didn't get to much the last visit either. It's rather overdue if I wish to keep these friendships.

Before I let myself get too real for a mere pattern review, let us focus shall we?
I found out and was intent on entering a project to the Skirt Contest on patternreview.com; it was days before my departure up North, and there wasn't a lot of time to work with. It's a little funny knowing the fact I scrambled then and now that I should realize that the previous skirt I finished still fell within the qualifying dates haha! I rushed for nothing...

Anyway, my choice was Butterick 5566, after some arduous deliberation.
Unfortunately it was a very recent pattern purchase... maybe a couple weeks old at most from the date I made it.
I landed on view D-E, and cut out a size 18.

Not wishing to further breach my commitment to using up old stash, I grabbed some flocked denim I purchased while living in New Mexico (but funny enough purchased during a trip to El Paso) and the remaining yardage of the suede-ish material from my last project (which I have since finished and worn... though no real time shots of that particular one yet).

In a nutshell, this skirt is exceedingly simple, even with the materials I have chosen which can be quite daunting to work with; I say this with what I consider to be the experience of an advanced beginner, maybe intermediate skill level. So really, there is nothing to be that afraid of when making this pattern view.

I'd say the scariest part of this skirt is the ease, which there is plenty of... and in my humble opinion, way too much at points. Especially on the upper hip. I was worried about this and continued with using my main material anyways without making a mock up... but I did hand baste the ever-loving-crap out of every seam to make sure everything matched up.

I did find that discrepancy that I was worried about-- the upper hip did gape. Thankfully the silhouette is simple enough that I simply grabbed ahold of my hip curve ruler and chopped off what needed removing and blended it out with my serger. Not the most professional way of getting things done, but it did the job.

I was particularly impressed with the drafting of the waist facing, I must say. I haven't come across many waist facings I didn't have to majorly tweak to fit; the only tweaking I did was the weight of the interfacing and adjustment of the upper hip being chopped. Though I didn't mess with the curvature, I just simply took off what I needed off the ends; it seemed to do the trick quite well.
I used a medium weight interfacing instead of a lightweight, even under a woven pant weight like the kind I used.
I like a lot of stability in that area, as my stomach protrudes quite awkwardly if there isn't anything bearing down on it like a belt or some such integrated cinching feature, heh.

I got it done in time, and I had hoped to shoot it and the previous skirt during my visit North as the landscape is much better than I have immediately available down here. Though, since I lacked the foresight to know that my time up there would not be mine... nothing was shot. During a visit to Dollarama with my brother however, I was pleasantly surprised to find some nice shooting equipment, and since the exchange rate was in my favor, for mere pocket change I was able to obtain a selfie stick, a bluetooth remote, a few cases, and a selection of mini tripods. Seriously, the dollar stores in Canada rock.

So now I'm able to do my photos all by myself again and without racing the timer! No more relying heavily on the whim of the hubbubs, and no more guilt trips for having the desire to take and share photos of myself from him either.

And of course, I cannot show and tell without a couple of the McCall's skirt.

I usually allot a couple hours for shooting because 1.) it takes a lot of convincing my hubbubs, almost precisely an hour and 2.) retaking and retaking photos because he won't take it seriously enough. This time I was able to shoot not one but two outfits and I got several very good shots! I was very pleased indeed. The quality overall of each shot is definitely up.
If you have any tips of your own for better shots, please, you're more than welcome to share them!

Till next time my lovely ghouls, spook ya later!