showcase:Small calico Skully (and a bit of a pattern test too)
I was intrigued at the time that the Skully pattern was launched; it looked cool and like it might be a fun challenge. Come the run up to Christmas, I had some calico and the idea to make a small Skully, partly as a trial and partly as a present.
I'm very pleased with the result and am going to make another ASAP, to keep for myself! This first one was a learning experience and a bit of a challenge at points, but nothing was insurmountable with a bit of patience.
The calico fabric is sturdy and sews well (as well as being a good colour for bone); it does fray a bit with repeated handling and I would suggest that other makers might prefer to choose a more tightly-woven fabric instead. I stitched the seamlines in black thread to mark where they should be; they look good to me personally but others might want to unpick the lines afterwards, or mark the stitching lines in a more temporary way. (The stitching did help as a kind of stay stitch though.)
Some of the steps were challenging in terms of puzzling out which bit was sewn to which other piece, and in which orientation. (I definitely sewed at least one piece upside down, and unpicked after I'd worked it out.) I've given suggestions for more instruction detail, but it is definitely manageble with patience. As the instructions suggested, I sewed by hand apart from the initial marking of the seam lines. This was partly due to the fact I made a 50% size skull so a number of the individual pieces were rather small, and it was hard to press the seams as I went on.
But overall it was a fun and quick sew - I did it over the weekend, completing a seam at a time in between other activities. With each seam I could feel a sense of achievement and see progress, without the difficulty level growing to be too frustrating. And the end result looks great all round! Note though that even this small one needs more scraps than you might think, in order to fill it well.