Growing up in Calgary I have always been surrounded by the rodeo environment, especially around the time of the Calgary Stampede (which is coming up soon!). My greatest hopes and dreams as a kid involved riding horses, being a farm veterinarian, and becoming a rodeo princess. To be completely honest, I would still absolutely love to be a rodeo princess!
When I first saw this fabric (very kindly gifted to me by Figo Fabrics! - check them out here) I immediately fell in love with it. I actually loved the entire collection - the chicken prints are adorable, and so are the tiny cowboy boots. This print was my favourite though, mostly because of the little cowgirls. The mix of red barns, desert plants, animals, and characters all make me so happy! The print is part of the Wild West collection, illustrated by Sara Boccaccini Meadows.
This skirt was a very simple one to make, and doesn't need any pattern at all! I just decided how long I wanted my skirt to be, divided that in three to make three tiers, and added seam allowance. I wasn't scientific with my pattern design of this skirt at all, I just cut out as many strips as I possibly could out of the 3 meters of fabric that I had and then divided it up so that each tier was at least twice as wide as the tier above it. This made sure that I get lots of volume in each tier for maximum twirly-ness. The whole project took me only about 10-ish hours and I am so pleased with it! Each of the seams is bound with bias tape on the inside to finish it, but other than that I made sure that the process could be a nice quick project for myself, especially since I had just gotten back from my trip to Europe when I started working on it.
I chose this design for a few reasons. Firstly, I really wanted to highlight the adorable pattern, so I didn't want there to be too many seams to obscure the pattern. Secondly, I wanted the garment to be inspired by my childhood since the story of the print reminds me so much of young me! My grandparents are from Paraguay, and my grandma used to always wear these beautiful tiered skirts, highly inspired by the Guaraní - the Indigenous peoples of Paraguay. Paraguay is a desert, so cactus prints always remind me of the photos that we have of my grandma in Paraguay wearing her beautiful skirts and white blouses. She often gave me skirts like that when I was a kid, and my grandma always got me to polka dance with her whenever I wore them. Wearing this skirt makes me feel like a little girl again, in the best of ways!
Working with this fabric was such a lovely time and I can see myself wearing this skirt over and over again in the future! I find that nice A-line skirts like this one is the easiest way to look vintage, since you can just pair them with a t-shirt and sneakers and still look retro! I am sure that this skirt will be a lifesaver this summer during hot days with a tank top and sandals. And if you were wondering, I was also able to climb up this surprisingly high fence very easily in this skirt! It is truly made for all activities.
Thanks for reading!
~Katherine
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