Willow is ma home gal

Geek out month! When someone mentioned Buffy the Vampire Slayer over on the Facebook group, I knew what I had to do – make something inspired by Willow. She’s totally my favourite Buffy character – geeky, excitable, lovely, and her “fashion sense” is awesome (in a nerdy, kinda-horrible-but-also-quirky-and-great kinda way).

Willow, being a fashion geek in overalls and cordroy

Much as I would have loved to make a pinafore dress in brown pinwale cord, I needed to find something that a) goes with my current wardrobe requirements (i.e. nursing friendly) and b) I could wear both now and in the future (body still changing shape a lot post-baby-arrival). Challenge? Game on!

Willow’s style tends to make me think of the late 1970’s. The brown, orange, overalls/dungarees, cordroy, etc. (Aside from the extremelly 90’s stuff, like the floppy velvet hats. But I pretend those don’t exist.) I must admit to not being 100% sure how accurate that impression of 1970’s style is, as it also reminds me of what I wore when I was a small child (and since I was born in ’77, we’re really talking early ’80s here. Although being from a small area in the middle of nowhere, fashion was probably running a couple of years behind anyway…). But hey, I’m going with it!

I dug out a 1975 pattern from my stash – Simplicity 7311, for a wrap skirt and blouse. With my currently-changing body size/shape at the moment, a wrap skirt seemed like a good option – I made it in my ‘normal’ size, which means it’s technically a bit too small for me at the moment, but being a wrap style, I reckon I can totally wear it anyway.

Simplicity 7311 from 1975

To keep with the late-70’s vibe and the Willow inspiration, I used a vintage cotton fabric – brown with a floral print. It seems to me like something Willow would wear. (If only it was pinwale cordroy. For some reason, that just makes me think of Willow. But I didn’t have any in my stash, so this was the closest I could get.)

Added bonus – nice, big pockets for all the geeky stuff Willow would be likely to carry around.

And there we have it – a Willow inspired skirt! (There are some more details over on my blog if you’re interested.)