Today is my review of the Amira Skirt by Fibre Mood, which is included in the latest edition of Fibre Mood magazine.

Short version of this blog post: it’s my favourite skirt ever.

I made three.

THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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In the space of one week.

So, before I gush, it’s time to take care of transparency. I received this pattern free of charge from Fibre Mood as a sneak peek, in exchange for making it up and sharing my make at the time of the release of the November 2021 edition.

Skirt stories

So, where to begin with the Amira Skirt?

The Fibre Mood Amira Skirt is a midi-length pleated skirt with wide waistband/yoke. It closes with an invisible zipper on the side.

I really love wearing skirts, but I’ve often struggled to get them right, as a sewing project. You may recall that in the distant past I even tried to do a “Skirt Series” on the blog, to really focus on my skirting needs.

But, the reality is that I often feel a bit uninspired by my attempts at skirt sewing.

I love a good circle skirt, but it often feels a bit retro and not as everyday wearable as I’d like.

A-line skirts often end up feeling a bit boring.

I have plenty of skirts with gathers but I often find myself feeling a bit too “poofy”.

I periodically decide to sew a straight skirt, for a change, and then end of never wearing it. My lifestyle is bicycle based. Straight skirts just don’t work.

Enter the pleated skirt. Volume while still sleek. Smooth.

And, when combined with the lovely wide yoke and waistband on the Amira Skirt, it looks classic but still interesting.

Confession: I’ve always loved pleated skirts, so it’s not surprise I’ve fallen hard for Amira. As a child, I wore a pleated skirt for 13 years straight in the form of a school uniform. I came of age with late ’90s preppy. I spend at least 10 years of my life convinced that I was going to be a librarian.

So, when I saw the line drawing for the Fibre Mood Amira Skirt, it felt like I was skirting with destiny…

OK, I promise, only one bad pun per blog post. I’m done!

My Fibre Mood Amira Skirt

My Fibre Mood Amira Skirt is a size 18.

Well, kind of.

The Fibre Mood Amira Skirt caters for a maximum waist size of 133cm.

While the pleats create plenty of room over the hips, the pattern is designed to be snug fitting at the waist. This is necessary because it’s really that closeness that holds everything in place and there is a lot of weight hanging from that waistband. It is actually designed to have 1cm negative ease at the waist, which is quite rare in a woven pattern.

I have to admit that wearing garments that rely on a snug fit and can’t really be modified does give me pause. I’ve written elsewhere about trying to sew in ways that take into account my frequent waistline fluctuations. Also 18 months of working mostly from home has left me firmly committed to continuing to explore the benefits of elastic in my everyday wardrobe.

In fact, when I finished each of these skirts in the evening, they fitted just as I needed. But when I took these blog photos a week later and in the morning, the skirt is sitting slightly lower than it should be.

The point being that garments that rely on my waistline not fluctuating at all are not really ideal.

But, despite some misgivings at a practical level, I just loved the look of the Fibre Mood Amira too much and decided to go with it. After all, I love these so much that I will actually take them in a bit if needed.

Noting the importance of sizing for this make, I did something very silly when cutting out the Fibre Mood Amira Skirt. The key for Fibre Mood patterns tells you which size to cut out for: European sizing, UK sizing and US sizing.

I needed a UK size 18, based on my waist measurements.

But I accidentally cut out the line for a US size 18.

Which resulted in me making my first Amira skirt (the mustard one) two sizes too big!!!!!

I rectified this by taking things in at the side seams and adjusting pleat sizes a bit.

But, for my subsequent versions, I didn’t want to have to reprint the pattern, so I took it in by 4cm at every side seam and tried to use the pleat position of the size two sizes down.

But it was a bit of a hack job!

All of this is to say that if my pleats are a little oddly placed, it is entirely my own fault and not that of the pattern.

Fabric choices

Fibre Mood Amira recommends the use of polyester as it is best for pressing and holding the pleats.

Now polyester is something I have actively avoided ever since I started sewing and therefore actually started to understand, for the first time, what fabrics are. Confession: before I sewed, I doubt I could have picked the difference between cotton and linen.

Such a muggle!

I think I’ve only ever sewn with polyester once or twice before and it is an area of fabric that is just a big ol’ black hole in my sewing knowledge.

But getting a good hold on those pleats seemed so important to the Fibre Mood Amira pattern, so I decided to be an obedient little sewist and started with a polyester crepe for my first version: the mustard yellow one. I got this from Textielstad, here in The Netherlands. It seems pretty good quality for what it is, but…

Lo and behold, just as I suspected, after 7 years of avoiding the stuff, I realise I pretty much hate polyester.

It stained from marks on my iron, was shifty as hell, was difficult to hem and, after all that, didn’t even hold the pleats as well as I had hoped. I would say that it came out no better in terms of hold than my version is viscose (more on that in a minute!).

But, I do still like the end result, so I’m calling this an awesome wearable muslin.

There really is so much in my wardrobe which will go well with this colour, so I’m actually happy to have put it together. And there is probably a useful purpose in having definitively confirmed my hatred of polyester.

So, on to the next version.

Which still has some polyester, but it’s a wool poly blend Prince of Wales check which I got from My Little Coupon and it is gorgeous!

This fabric basically epitomises the librarian-core vision I had the moment that I saw the Fibre Mood Amira pattern.

When combined with the thick sturdy wool, the polyester content of this one really gives the fabric a super crisp press and it is really perfect for this pattern.

And, my final version of Amira (third time’s a charm!) is made from the “Hilma” ecovera viscose twill by Atelier Brunette.

The viscose version has a bit of a looser and flowing vibe. But, in my mind, it more than makes up for its lack of crispness with its gorgeous autumnal colours.

Sewing the Fibre Mood Amira Skirt

Sewing the Fibre Mood Amira Skirt came together pretty easily.

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This is a project where you spent more time pressing than sewing. But it’s worth it and the actual sewing part is pretty quick and easy.

There were a couple of little details in the instructions that I didn’t love.

The instructions for the Fibre Mood Amira didn’t finish the facing cleanly on the inside by fully securing it down (either by topstitching or stitching in the ditch, both of which are very easy to do). I also preferred to baste the pleats down horizontally before attaching the waistband.

But these were all minor things that could be adjusted as I went.

I also found that for the checked and mustard versions, where my fabric was 150cm, the fabric requirements gave me quite a bit of leftover fabric. As my fabric was wide enough that I could cut both my front and back as a single piece, I ended up with between 75cm-1m of extra fabric, compared to the recommendations.

The Atelier Brunette fabric, however, is 140cm wide, which meant that I did need to use most of the fabric since I had to cut the back skirt in multiple pieces to be wide enough.

One other little adjustment that I learnt from my yellow wearable muslin is that, in lighter fabric, the Fibre Mood Amira Skirt didn’t feel quite as secure as I wanted around the waist.

So I decided to also add interfacing to the waistband facing, in addition to the waistband itself, for the Atelier Brunette fabric version.

Finally, on small sewing musings, the Fibre Mood Amira calls for closing the skirt with an invisible zipper and a hook and eye.

Here’s my question. Does anyone actually use hooks and eyes?

I despise the things. So fiddly to stitch on. And doing them up and undoing them irritate me no end.

I almost never use them. Anytime a pattern calls for them above a zip, I simply trim the zipper tape down by cutting off the top centimetre or so after the teeth ends and instead, install my zippers so they zip all the way at the top.

Tell me I’m not alone.

Or does everyone else secretly love hooks and eyes and I never got the memo?

Hand-sewing hems

I hate hand-sewing.

I really do.

But these hems really needed it.

I actually tried to sew the hems of both the mustard and atelier brunette versions by machine but they kept sliding and slipping around and making a hot mess.

So I unpicked and decided to do it by hand.

Which I still had a lot of trouble with – it’s definitely not my forte.

And with the polyester crepe in particular, it was difficult to pick up just a thread or two and the process of trying to do so caused visible runs in the fabric. Grrrr, I hate polyester.

The wool was actually fun to handsew the hem. And it is the only one which is genuinely invisible from the right side.

Where are you on team hem: are you a fan of hand-sewing or do you avoid it at all costs?

If you do want to avoid hand sewing your hem with the Fibre Mood Amira, I think that your best option would be to skip the step of interfacing the bottom 3cm of the skirt and then just make a little micro rolled hem, like you would on a circle skirt.

The downside, however, is that the interfacing in the hem line helps give the skirt that overall crispness of the shape, so you might lose some of that effect.

Like so many things, it’s a trade-off.

Not that I can really speak off trade-offs. The woman who loved a pattern so much she made three versions in a week.

I think I fall more squarely into team having-you-cake-and-eating-it.

Or team having-your-skirt-and-wearing-it.

Three times.

What’s the more recent pattern that sent you a bit gaga with repeat versions? Or, like with the hooks and eyes, am I alone here in the Land-of-the-Overexcited?

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If you want to see more of my sewing adventures, you can find me on Instagram here.