The skirt of Chevron Rainbows!

Here are some deets ahead of the crochet pattern launch for my Chevron Maxi skirt. My pattern will be available within a days, and this post is the project reveal - keep scrolling for lots of pics!

Chevrons are fabulous right? ......And so is crochet and Scheepjes Whirlette and Whirls, so why not smoosh them altogether and make something bright and cheery!?

At least that's what I figured when I decided to design the long Maxi skirt version of the Chevron skirt that was originally published in Simply Crochet Magazine last year...

The original looked like these photos below: Sunny solid colours in a Mini-skirt with a hairpin lace fringe that gave a "When my baby looks at me I go to Rio..." festive kind of vibe. (I had that song playing in my head when I made the Mini skirt - lol). I designed it in Whirlette as the project wasn't really large enough to really see the benefit of a Whirl.

This is a Medium sample of the Mini skirt and the fabric is stretchy enough to skim my hips while the waist band in this instance is not much smaller than the skirt fabric, and this avoids unnecessary bulk. I figured that would work for a mini skirt better than having excess fabric. Then the feature is the fun fringe and how that moves!

It's light and summery and is fun to wear, but I am also a BIG fan of long flowing skirts - and then you have enough fabric to create that means everyone's Whirl addiction (including mine) will be satisfied! Long skirts may or may not go so well with the hairpin lace fringe though - I imagined a lot of getting caught on things and it's always good to provide an alternative finishing detail in case the hairpin lace is not your cup of chai ....so I wrote in a solid hemline option for the long skirt version but this could be used on either length really.

SO... here is my Maxi version!

My model Emily and I had great fun at the beach photo shoot to get some good pics.

Now I want to talk elastic waist bands...

The great thing about this skirt is how adaptable the waist band is because of the elastic insertion technique. The top of the skirt has to fit over your hips but the inserted waist band can bring the top of the skirt right in if you have a much smaller waist than the skirt fabric. This means that if you are between sizes on the measurements chart, then you could easily make the larger of the two sizes, and still make your waist band as small as you need to.

I made myself a size Large skirt (as seen above) for the Maxi version because I am a Medium but also a "pear shape" with large hips while my waist is pretty small - I didn't want it to hug my hips too much and I wanted a flowy feel this time around. The un-stretched elastic on this sample is actually a LOT smaller (20cm smaller) than the circumference of the skirt fabric when laid flat (as opposed to the Mini skirt Medium sample which was pretty much the same circumference), so you can see you can pull in quite a bit if needed!

It's not me modelling the skirt though because its much easier to take photos of someone else rather than myself. Thank you to my gorgeous friend Emily who is my height and a size Medium model so you can see how the skirt generally fits and drapes, though if I were making a skirt for Emily, she could have opted a Medium size skirt as her hips are significantly narrower than mine.

My skirt sample used the leftovers from the other projects you can see in the composite below. I used Whirl 778 Turkish Delight from my original Wave Rider Tank prototype that was published by Scheepjes in YARN 7 Bookazine (REEF) - that's the variety of pinks you see. I used some Whirlette 860 Ice white left over from my cotton version of my Rabbit Alice Sweater. The Whirlette 857 Kiwi is left over from my Arcadia Dress, and the gradation of blues is leftovers from the 562 Petrol Please Me Whirls from my one of a kind competition "Blue Willow Dress" (no pattern for this one).

I kind of just put colours where they made me happy for this skirt project, but then I needed to estimate how to work with the full colour gradations of Whirls in the design.

Fiona Kelly stepped up for testing to make this most awesome Small sample of the skirt for her fashionista daughter Niamh. I say fashionista because Niamh very much knows what colours she wants and we can all admire her colour choices!! How beautiful are these colours blended together!? This combines Whirl in 783 Brambleberry with Whirlette in 851 Liquorice and 869 Luscious.

Then Annemie Celens jumped in to test an XL sample of the skirt in this classic blue and white combination! She chose Whirl 755 Blueberry Bambam with Whirlette in 860 Ice and 869 Luscious. I love how graphic this version looks with the dark/light contrast vibe! Totally different again.

With the range of Whirlette and Whirls on offer, you could go really colour overload with brights, or just go with an ombre Whirl with white or black... So many possibilities!

Here are the Yardage and Size details for the project.

The math to manage increasing stitch counts with stripes of colour and crochet seams was challenging - and I chose to limit sizing to 5 sizes because otherwise my head was going to explode...

YARN

MINI-SKIRT:

Scheepjes Whirlette (60% Cotton, 40% Acrylic; 100g/455m)

Yarn A x 1 (1: 1: 2: 2) balls of Banana (858)

Yarn B x 1 (1: 2: 2: 2) balls of Ice (860)

Yarn C x 1 (1: 1: 1: 1) balls of Rose (859)

Yarn D x 1 (1: 1: 1: 1) balls of Citrus (864)

Yarn E x 1 (1: 1: 1: 1) balls of Bubble (866)

(This includes Yarn E to swatch for gauge. Medium sample totals: 75g A, 98g B, 25g C, 20g D, 17g E).

MAXI-SKIRT:

Combines Scheepjes Whirl (60% Cotton, 40% Acrylic; 215g/1000m) and Whirlette (60% Cotton, 40% Acrylic; 100g/455m)

Yarn A* x 1 (2: 2: 2: 2) balls of Whirl Brambleberry (783)

Yarn B* x 2 (2: 3: 4: 4) balls of Whirlette Luscious (869)

Yarn C x 1 (1: 1: 1: 2) balls of Whirlette Liquorice (851)

(This includes enough Yarn B to swatch for gauge. Small sample totals: 190g A, 135g B, 55g C)

* NOTE RE WHIRL USAGE (MAXI Skirt only):

Size Small uses approx. 90% of the 1 Whirl Cake with very little leftovers. Sizes M (L: XL: 2XL) will use approx. 10% (30%: 55%: 70%) of the 2nd Whirl cake so:

· For Size Medium, you may prefer to use Yarn B for Arrowhead Strip and Yarn C for Solid Hemline instead of Yarn A for these sections to get away with using 1 Whirl cake instead of 2. This is not possible for Size Large as you would likely run out of Whirl just before completing the Fill-in Triangles. To help you decide which colours to use at lower skirt, the Arrowhead Strip uses approx. 15-30g of each colour, and the solid hemline uses approx. 20-45g of the chosen colour (variance described is across sizes Small- 2XLarge).

· I recommend using all of first Whirl cake, then continue from same colour point of second Whirl cake to finish the skirt.

HOOKS

3.25mm (US D/3) crochet hook (for Sizes M, XL)

3.5mm (US E/4) crochet hook (for Sizes S, L, 2XL)

Other Materials

4mm wide elastic x 1.1 (3.3)m for MINI-Skirt (MAXI-Skirt): allowance is for XXL waist circumference.

Note: The MINI-Skirt waist band uses 1 ring of elastic; the MAXI skirt uses 3 rings of equal circumference cut to suit your waistline. This 4mm width of elastic is critical to match the height of crochet stitches used to cover the elastic.

Stitch markers

Difficulty level...

My Chevron Skirt pattern is best suited to a relatively experienced crocheter - there are a number of techniques used in the pattern, stitch counts are really important and there a few tails to sew in neatly at the end, but I have included heaps of detail to help you through your make. Finishing details are important, and full wet and steam blocking is imperative (and this is explained in the pattern too).

The PDF is 20 pages of written instructions, has lots of photos and tips along the way, a stitch chart for the trickiest edging bits, and is written in English UK terms with a UK-US conversion chart included at the end of the document.

Before I go I want to leave you with an image of where you would rather be, imagining your own skirt of chevron rainbows and holiday vibes... gotta love our Perth beaches!!!

You can find the definitive guide on which Whirlettes go with which Whirls on Simy's blog as well as some tips in my previous blog when I released my Dizzy Lizzy Dress.

You can source your new rainbow stash from Scheepjes Retailers worldwide or consider shopping via these affiliate links below where it does not cost you any extra but I receive a small percentage of the sale (thank you so much!)

Wool Warehouse (in the UK and ships worldwide)

Caros Atelier (in The Netherlands)

Happy dreaming of your own chevron rainbow...

Susan (Peppergoose)

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