sewniptuck

I started my day as is my routine with a fresh soy latte and a quick scan of my new emails. There in my Inbox was a missive from Britex the most brilliant article about an all in one Hong Kong lining with vent. I clicked through to Nicole at Home’s blog and I was gobsmacked by the timeliness, so grateful to Nicole for spending the time preparing this awesome tutorial. Here’s my attempt in calico.

Nicole didn’t know it, but I had spent most of my weekend trying to perfect a lined vent on a pencil skirt toile (wearable of course, this was my 2^nd go). A few weeks ago I saw a picture of a delicious black lace pencil skirt.  Hah, how hard can that be?  I rushed out, bought my requisite metreage of pretty black lace at enormous expense and then my inner voice squeaks “but you need a centre back vent and you haven’t a clue how to line it, remember how you converted the last potential CB vent into a flounce to avoid the hideousness of a badly attached lining?”. I did, I admit I definitely did convert a CB vent into a flounce to avoid the dreaded lined vent.

After pulling out samples from my (unfinished) TAFE college course and scratching my head at how those lined vents came together under my hands, I succumbed to the allure of Mr Google. Please, someone out there tell me how to do this, even better please show meeeeeee! Can you hear my whinging and whining?! Oh, for our friends in the US, whinging is a legitimate word – no kidding!

Enter the most fantastic “how to line a vent tutorial ever” courtesy of a rather dishy Englishman with a ‘somewhere from northern England’ accent. That accent always makes people sound so helpful doesn’t it, or is it just my memories of Are You Being Served?! This guy might just be my TED talk replacement for keeping me company in the sewing dungeon. Check out his tutorial – you won’t regret it. Thanks to Mr Coates with the uncannily sartorial name, my lined vent turned out almost perfectly. But I was still stuck on how on earth to line my lace skirt without the innards showing outwards…

Yay for Nicole at Home, you very clever thing you! All in one Hong Kong finished lined vented skirt tutorial – gorgeous on my sample, but I decided the red skirt wasn’t worth the effort.

I can’t wait to show you my lace pencil skirt finished. But for now, here’s the wearable toile, lined in a poly cotton batiste – ‘cos that’s what I had on hand. A word of warning – poly batiste is not silky, so it doesn’t slide over undies. I nearly lost mine on an escalator with a fella standing 2 steps below me. Saved only by a sneaky hook up from the side or he would have had something to share with the blokes down the pub!

Then its off to the dungeon heavy with the anticipation of conquering another technique.