For a couple years now these Hippopotamuses have been comic muses to my sewing poet. Every time I would dig through my fabric stash, they would bellow at me to bring them out to play upon some clothing canvas. I couldn't concentrate on sensible solids or age-appropriate prints until they had their day.
Have you ever struggled to march animals in chevrons across a skirt? Especially hippos that don't walk straight across the grain and are alternatingly upside down and right side up? I couldn't find any guidance for the bias cutting of novelty animal prints and finally just had to use my judgement. Then I cut the waistband on the grain and found the Hippopotamuses (Hippopatami?) went off-kilter though do I think the piping helps to keep them in bounds.
My errant muses inspired me to finish this a couple weeks ago, but I haven't really had the same compulsion to wear it. Makes me wonder: what is the occasion for a Hippo skirt? A trip to the zoo? Toddler reading hour at the Library? Umm. . . oh yes! Jumping around in the alley !
I made some modifications to the Ginger pattern again: addition of pockets as before and adjustment of the waistband so that it wouldn't gape on top. I did this my slicing the waistband down from the top leaving a little hinge on the bottom and overlapping about about 1/4" to subtract a total of an inch from the top.
The great thing about this modification is that it created a contoured waistband that connected perfectly to the skirt. See?
I also gave the waistband a heavy interfacing so it won't sag and I eviscerated the piping at center back so that it wouldn't interfere so much with the invisible zip. Also, I found out that zippers put into bias cut fabric MUST be stabilized first. This fabric is pretty coarsely woven and the bias cut made the center back seam stretch so the zipper ripples. I redid it once and it still looks bad.
The other bother is that I don't really know how to coordinate anything with this as the blue and red are so quintessentially 1970s. Today I am wearing it with a short sleeve Lydia T -shirt I made last month and a jean jacket.
I now have five Ginger skirts: two silly Ginger Skirts, a serious Ginger and the exposed zip outlier. And now, I will go back to the fabric pile with hopes that my next muse will not be so capricious.
