Skirt Into Fall

After I made the blue corduroy shorts, I still had a lot of that fabric left.  I felt like making a long skirt from it would be good.

Then my brain started complicating things: it demanded a center front button placket.

Well, I thought, that still wouldn't be too hard--might even be possible to make without a pattern, just gather the waist into--

"No," the brain said. "It should be an A-line skirt."

Well...OK...I do have an A-line skirt pattern with a center front seam that could be hacked...

Buuut I really didn't want to do that.  So, I checked the next JoAnn pattern sale and purchased two possibilities: McCall's 7981 and 7906.  7981 has some non-gathered views that are pretty much what I envisioned, but 7906's pleated (and top stitched!) waist shaping was also really appealing, so I decided to go with that one.

 

But.

I am still getting a feel for sewing things with waists, and my waist measurement, last time I measured (which was when I was still planning to make this) was somewhere between 16 and 18.  The finished waist measurements are printed on the pattern, so I decided to risk things and go with the 16.

At this point, however, I also decided not to jump right in with the corduroy, so I grabbed something from the stash that's not my usual color scheme, but was just the right length that there's not a whole lot of it left over.  After a few days of sporadic sewing, I ended up with this

The main feature of this skirt is, of course, the waistline pleats/tucks, which are very straightforward, but I also realized that making them from corduroy will require an amount of precision that I am not prone to enacting, so there's another positive about starting this with a completely different fabric.

I could have used orange or golden yellow thread, but I went straight to lime green, and lime green buttons, too.

It's because I like lime green more than any of the dominant colors in this print (the black outlines are fine.)  The farther-from-the-edge placket stitching was done from the inside of the skirt, and I didn't have the upper tension high enough, so it's kind of a mess, especially compared to the rest of the top stitching.  As usual, I'm making  myself not worry about it, because no-one should be close enough to see in the course of regular wear.

Of course I was very happy that the pattern calls for the top stitching along the tops of the pleat tucks.  The edge stitching around the outer edges of everything is all me (as usual.)

And I did sew a snap to the top corner of the opening, where the pattern calls for a hook and eye.  I was strongly considering sewing ultralightweight hook and loop tape there for a moment...

I did use more buttons than the pattern directed, and placed them by trying on the unfinished skirt and marking the bulgiest spot as where to put a button, then figuring out the rest of the buttons' spacing from there.

I used to figure that new button spacing by folding things in half and marking, but I finally splurged and ordered a Simflex adjustable sewing gauge 

The pin I placed to show where the "must go here to counteract bulge" button would go is visible under the left-most gauge...uh...pointy thing.  Finger?  Anyway.  The gauge worked perfectly, it just turned out that I had the skirt hiked up too high when I tried it on so the bulge gapping is not completely contained after all.  Which is fine!  Test skirt and all that, and I can add another snap there if it annoys me too much.

I had looked at a few reviews of this pattern and noticed that a lot of people were finishing the waist facing with bias tape, so I decided to do that, too.  This also gave me an excuse to finally try the adjustable bias binder presser foot I bought...uh...a while ago.

The first try only took a few inches before it needed to be re-tried, but I adjusted the front a bit and everything went well after that.  I decided I'd bind the lower edge before hemming, instead of serging, too.

This pattern also has pockets, which saved me the trouble of trying to figure out how to add them, which meant that there was also the aspect that I probably wouldn't have thought of that the seam above the pockets is the same length as the pleat tuck seams, so I went ahead and top stitched above the pockets, too.

The pattern directs to hand stitch the tacks from the waist facing to the side and center back seam allowances, but I'm me so I did a strategic machine stitch at the center back between the pattern-directed top stitching there.

I didn't worry about tacking the facing at the side seams, because I had already understitched and top stitched (and hooo was some of that area many-layered enough that I had to hand crank in a few spots) around the waistband, so it didn't seem inclined to flip out on the sides the way it was flipping out at the back.

Some of the print elements almost repeat on either side of the back seam and front opening too much for my comfort, but the pleats bring the pattern elements a lot closer than they naturally are in a lot of areas of the skirt, so they don't bother me too much.  Really.

And, lo! It is worn!

Here it is with a light sweater, medium-heavy knit shirt, and high-waist leggings all fitting extremely easily under the waistband, and now I'm wondering if I could just possibly maybe get away with making it in size 14...?  I know the pleat/tuck structure provides loads of opportunity for fine-tuning the finished waist size in a skirt like this, if someone cares enough to put the math into it.  I'll probably try a straight size 14 before I go that far.