a tale of two Brumbys

Last weekend, I assembled the Brumby pdf and cut wearable muslins of both view 1 and view 3ish (by "ish" I mean that I cut it to still have pockets, but with the shape/length of view 3.)

This week, I've been sewing them up.  View 1 came together very smoothly.  I cut a medium waistband and an XL skirt, so that I could have a bit of extra fullness to accommodate my pear shape. The result was a very cheerful little skirt.

I really love the pockets on this skirt. I used some contrasting bright yellow fabric for the lining and I like how the pockets are rather oversized and slouchy so you catch glimpses of the contrast lining in natural movements. This fabric is quite bold, but I think it works well in this pattern.  It is thrifted. The selvage says "Cranston Print Works. Schwartz Liebman Tex. USA" no date.  From my googlemancy, I think it is from the late 90s or early 2000's.

I would definitely make this view and size combination again, though for work I would probably add a couple inches of length. It's not super-short; but I realized, as I was wearing it on Friday, that I like to keep my knees a little more under-wraps in the workplace. It would also be fine for work with tights and I think it would be a great length for a wintertime lined wool version. All-in-all, though, a very wearable muslin.

Brumby the second didn't turn out to be so painless. The trick of cutting the extra large sized skirt turned out very poorly for this view.  I did this on all my Kellys and it worked well.  Veronika was fine as all medium, due to the circle shape.  The fuller a-line view of the Brumby should be an all-medium make, if I do it again.

With the extra fullness of the XL skirt gathered into the medium sized waistband, I ended up with a super-poufy, kind of fussy skirt.  Part way through making it, I started to hate it. I contemplated ditching the whole thing without finishing it, but then I decided that I would have a sort of Tim Gunn make-it-work moment and just start hacking the muslin up till I either liked the end result or destroyed it.  What's left isn't exactly the Brumby pattern, but I turned it around to be a good summer date night skirt.

I pinned, tucked, chopped, and nipped bits of this skirt until it fit better and was a little less puffed-out.  I also added six belt loops to keep this red belt in place.

It still has the great Brumby pockets... and these are lined with a wide striped menswear shirt fabric, which is my favorite part of the whole skirt.

The main fabric is a thrifted cotton/poly that I think is from the 70s or 80s. It looked nicer uncut that it does sewn into a garment.  I thought it would give sort of a fun retro feeling, but I felt more like Little House on the Prairie gone wrong when I first put this skirt on.  I think I turned the muslin around for an okay save, though.

I learned enough from these first two muslins to feel confident cutting into my Robert Kaufman indigo dot chambray that arrived in the mail this week.  I am looking forward to Brumby #3.