Tropical Marie Wrap Skirt

A wrap skirt in a tropical floral rayon challis… Does anything get more summery than that? I don’t think so. Grab the sunscreen & big hats, because I’m officially ready to lay out by the pool!

Alright! This is my second Rosy Peña Patterns garment, and this piece definitely turned out a little – okay, a lot! – less pajama-y than my first go around with the Laura dress (though I still stand by its’ total comfort factor, and plan to redeem myself with another version very soon!). Today, I’m showing off my version of the Marie Wrap Skirt, sewn up in a super beautiful fabric from one of my favorite stores, Indie Sew!

First off, let’s talk about value. This pattern is offered by Rosy as a freebie for anyone subscribing to her newsletter.True story – all that you have to do is visit her website, subscribe to the newsletter, and you will receive a code to redeem this pattern for absolutely nothing. So truly, even if I’d totally botched this pattern and ended up with something I would never wear, it would’ve been okay. Luckily, that wasn’t the case! Rosy also offers a sewalong video for this skirt on her youtube channel. Though I haven’t watched it myself, I’d say that even the fact that it is available is another great bonus for no cost at all!

Rosy’s patterns offer layered .pdf formats, so I was able to print off a size small without any interference from other sizes on my print out. I trimmed, cut, and taped the pattern pretty quickly – the pattern was easy to make sense of, and I like the page markings that are used in her patterns. Even though I’d verified the size of my test square, the pattern pieces looked smaller than I imagined once I’d cut them out, but this must’ve just been my imagination because everything turned out just fine!

The construction of the skirt was easy enough, but I did feel the instructions were lacking just a little bit. There are only 8 steps to the pattern instructions; though I don’t necessarily think more steps were needed, I did find that I really had to think through what was going on a couple of times. I think that this was mostly due to the fact that the illustrations denote the fabric as either right side or wrong side, which is great, but then the language uses “right side” and “left side” of the skirt, and I wasn’t sure if it referred to the right/left side when wearing it, or when looking at it head on while making it, due to the illustrations. There were also a couple of times I felt that zooming out, per se, on the illustration to show which side was home to the longer or shorter edge of the tie could’ve been super helpful. Overall, though, the instructions were thorough enough that I ended up with a well constructed skirt at the end of the day, and the wrap ties worked out exactly like they should have… I think!

This rayon fabric has an almost linen-like feel to it, with the drape of a rayon. It is SO GOOD, and it was lovely to work with! I went ahead and finished all of my edges and seams on my serger, because I’ve noticed lately that after a few washes, any of my rayon garments finished any other way do eventually start to fray a bit! I love this skirt, and I think it’s going to last me many seasons, so the longer I can preserve it, the better.

I love the fun high-low bit going on thanks to the wrapped front, but my favorite thing about this pattern is the length. I’ve mentioned before that I struggle to find maxi length garments in the ready to wear clothing world that are actually long enough to go past my ankles, much less to wear with heels. The length of this skirt is absolutely perfect – it will look cute with cute, flat sandals for more casual pool vibes, but I will also be able to wear heels or wedges with it and still have plenty of length in the back! I was surprised by this – only because Rosy Peña herself always seems to be so cute and petite in photos, so if anything, I expected to find that the skirt was a bit shorter than my liking!

My measurements put me between an x-small and small in this pattern. I’d like to be able to somehow find a way to wear this throughout the summer, even with a growing baby bump, so I went ahead and sized up to the small. I figured worst case scenario, I just cinch the wrap a bit tighter if needed! I almost wish I’d gone with the extra small – when I tighten up the wrap ties too much, I get a bit of a square shape thing happening on the top of my backside. I think a couple of darts could help this, but I also lose the square shape (for the most part) by loosening the wrap ties a bit. I am sure that I will appreciate the extra room I have in a week or two, though!

Overall, I’m super happy with this skirt. Even with the little extra bit of thinking I had to do while making sure I was following the instructions correctly, I sewed this up fairly quickly, and I’ve ended up with a super pretty skirt that can take me from casual pool day to glam summer night out fairly easily. I would highly recommend going to check out this pattern!

Skirt: handmade by me

Fabric: Rayon Challis Navy Tropics – IndieSew 

Pattern: Marie Wrap Skirt – Rosy Pena Patterns 

• XX Elizabeth