There are some pattern designs that are everyday basics and others that are all hearts-for-eyeballs, I-need-this-now amazing. The Nascha Mini Skirt by Named Patterns falls into the latter category. The design is an ingenious, faux wrap-front mini skirt with a little triangle cut out at the front hem and an exposed zipper at the center back.
For this skirt, I chose a kind of "showcase" fabric. It's a perfect kind of fabric for a smaller item like a mini skirt or cropped jacket. I found the fabric in the bargain bin. There was just enough to make a mini skirt. It's very likely that the fabric is a home decor fabric, making it kind of thick but also prone to unraveling and stretching.
The pattern is really quite ingenious. I've never made anything quite like it. I have made mini skirts before but this was another endeavor. The skirt is fully lined with facings at the waistband and hem and facings built in to the left and right front pieces. Contrary to most patterns, you actually attach the hem facing and lining before the waistband facing. The lining is sewn at the top and bottom to the facings, making accurate cutting very important.
I was worried about the length of the skirt and also how to lengthen this pattern. I made a quick muslin without any length adjustments to determine how length I wanted to add. I am 5'11" and without adding any length this skirt was super short on me, as in hello-inner-thigh-short. I decided to add 2.5 inches distributed in two different places in the skirt. The pattern does not provide "lengthen here" markings so I just chose a couple of places. As you can see above, even though I lengthened it, the skirt is still a mini length.
The exposed zipper insertion was different than what I've done before. You simply stitch the zipper tape to the seam allowance. In the instructions, you are supposed to top stitch it once the lining is inserted. It seemed secure to me, so I just hand stitched the lining in and skipped the top stitching.
There are five pattern pieces that needed lengthening. And I totally messed it up. I did 4 pieces as planned and made the 5th too short. And because the fabric was prone to stretching, I didn't notice until I had it sewn together. So I did a lot of unpicking. Fortunately, I was able to fix it all and my finished skirt looks as it's supposed to.
There are a couple of tricky parts to lengthening the front pieces of this skirt. One is the angles of the wrap feature and the second is the built in facings at the wrap. When you slice and move the pattern pieces, the angles no longer line up, which then effects everything else. It's a little hard to describe but above you can see photos of my adjusted pattern pieces. For the front right piece, I cut along the dashed line for the facing and moved them to the left to line up with the angle created at the top. For the front left, I trimmed the middle section to match the angle then added a little extra in the bottom segment and facing to make everything line up.
Even though the construction is unusual, the pattern instructions are fairly easy to follow. There are a few things to be aware of: 1) the wrong side of the fabric is colored in the illustrations, 2) illustrations are underneath the corresponding instruction, 3) not all steps are illustrated. I got a little confused by all the seam finishing instructions so I kind of ignored those parts and just carried on as I wanted. It would have been helpful to have more illustrations, but I was able to figure it out without too much trouble.
I love the design of this skirt and hope to wear it out soon. I have a dark navy fabric that I bought for this pattern and I may decide to make it again. I think this will be a great skirt for the summer months. In a darker fabric it would look great paired with tights. If you're looking for a mini skirt that's a little out of the ordinary then I highly recommend that you give the Nascha Mini Skirt a try.
Disclosure: I received this pattern for free courtesy of the great folks at IndieSew but all thoughts/opinions are my own.
