Island Inspired Skirts Part 2

After making a few skirts that matched the Micronesian skirts in proportions and pattern, I decided to try something a bit different.

This skirt retains the strong colors of the Micronesian skirts and the proportions of a piece 22" wide and one 11" wide.  However, the narrower piece is on the top and the wider piece is on the bottom, reversing the original arrangements. The result is basically a yoked skirt.  It does tend to emphasize the width of the hips, which is definitely not a part of Micronesian design, but can be seen in traditional Polynesian dance attire.  The bottom uses box pleats, with the interior of the pleat in a contrasting color.  I've never seen box pleats used in Micronesian design.  Another thing that does carry over is creative use of built in decorative stitches.  This skirt has no applique or embroidery.

The lower skirt panels are decorated with built in decorative stitches from my Husqvarna Designer SE.  To help them stand out, I used embroidery thread rather than regular sewing thread.  This thread is a bit shinier.

The seam at the bottom of the upper panel is decorated with a butterfly stitch.  I have used this stitch on a number of skirts.

This skirt uses the same general yoke and box pleats as the previous one.  However, in a nod to the Micronesian designs, the hem is not straight.  The outer blue panels are decorated with single color embroidery.

The designs are from Embroidery Library.  There are 4 different, related designs used on the skirt.  In a nod to the blue and green colors, they are all water related designs.  As with the black and red skirt, the colors of the decorative stitching picks up the other color in the skirt.

Come back next week for some more twists on island inspired skirt design.