I'm even more in love with the finished product than I was with the pattern. This is a Vogue skirt (V8296) made in lovely berry-colored hemp/soy linen. It's cut on the bias to show off the lovely drape of this fabric. My favorite part: the raw edges of the fabric, lapped rather than seamed, which will fray and soften over time.
Here's a closeup of the raw edges detail:
I first fell in love with this design technique when I saw an evening gown made by Lanvin, sewn with gently fraying edges in a very sheer organza. Needless to say, the $1200 price tag wasn't in my budget, so I decided to make my own interpretation.
I found this article about frayed edges on Pattern Review, and was inspired to go for it. Threads magazine also featured raw edges in a 2006 article An Exposé on Deconstructed Seams.
The technique is not hard at all ... in some ways it's easier than finishing seams the traditional way. The trick is to make sure the raw edges don't have any jagged edges showing scissor marks from cutting out the fabric. You don't want the frayed edges to look messy or accidental. It reminds me of being a teenager in the 80's – we liked to mess up our hair, but only in a very specific way. Just having messed up hair wasn't cool, it had to be messed up with a lot of gel!
To finish, I trimmed the edges to be fairly straight (but still organic), then encouraged the fraying in a few places with a seam ripper. It will be interesting to see how the fraying changes with wear and time (I'll post an updated photo to show progress).
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