Japanese skirt

One of the cool things about sewing your own clothes is that you can make them any way you want. Shorter, longer, wider, simpler, fancier, with or without sleeves or furry trim or extra buttons ... I've always been short (5'4" ish) and currently I'm also just fat enough that it's sometimes hard to find cool things that fit properly – but not fat enough to find anything in the Big Ladies store (if I ever get that fat, I can assure you I will not stay that way long enough to buy new clothes!). I don't consider myself a freak, but I do seem to have a kind of "custom" body type, so I've been enjoying sewing for myself as much out of necessity as for the satisfaction of dressing myself in one-of-a-kind handmade clothing that nobody else will have.

Last summer, for instance, I made myself a skirt out of this great flowered cotton fabric from Japan. I love this stuff! Poppy Fabric in Oakland always has a good selection, or you can take your chances and buy online at Fabric Tales, crossing fingers that you won't get a weird piece with a snarl or slub in it.

This particular skirt almost didn't get made, though, because I didn't buy enough fabric. It was my first purchase of this type of design, and I wasn't sure how much I was really going to like it, so I only bought a yard. Then I used part of that to make a little pillow, and another little piece to patch something ... Upon which I decided I did in fact like it, very much ... only to then realize that I no longer had enough of it to make the skirt I'd had in mind.

Harrumph! Finally I decided that since I never tuck anything into a skirt anyway, it would be permissable to patch the thing together out of several pieces, which worked just fine – the skirt part is two big pieces (front and back), and the top is sort of like a yoke sewn out of three pieces that were left over along the edge. I even had a small rectangular piece left, which I used to make a secret pocket you access via the seam between the skirt and the yoke.

That pocket is the best thing about this skirt – I like it so much I'm going to start incorporating it into everything I made from now on. I don't know how many skirts I've had that lack pockets altogether, or have pockets that are too deep or too small or on the wrong side or look bulky because they've been installed in the side seams, right where a person like me does not want any extra padding.

This pocket is perfect. It's exactly as wide as my right hand, and exactly as deep as my fingers can reach, and it's in the exact spot on my right hip that I instinctively reach for when I need a dollar bill, or a key, or a hair clip or a chapstick or whatever.

It's surprisingly satisfying to reach for a pocket where you've never had one before, and find one right where you want it. Every time it happens I burst out smiling.