After finishing the blue plaid moto jacket, I had a sizable chunk of fabric left. And since I had managed to squeeze a skirt out of the fabric left over from the previous wool jacket, I thought I'd try it again.
I wasn't optimistic, since it would not only be attempting to get maximum length out of minimum yardage, but it would also need pattern matching at the side seams. I procrastinated a few days before laying things out to check, whereupon I was nicely surprised, and now I have a skirt.
The side seam pattern matching isn't perfect, but, as always, no-one's going to be looking that close.
This is the sheath view of New Look 6843 from 2002 in size 16 again, but with the waistband cut in size 18--when I used it for the spiderweb skirt, the size 16 waistband was just a bit too small...even though everything else fit fine. The 18 waist on this one is a bit loose, but it's the era of tucked-in shirts again, so that's probably for the better.
To get as much length as possible, yet still have a blind-stitched hem, I serged the edge and then stitched straight lace to it before pressing and hemming.
I still haven't repaired the cam selector on my machine, so I do the blind hem by taking advantage of this particular sewing machine's ability to manually control the zigzagging on the fly. This does lead to the zigged stitches being a bit irregularly spaced, but it works.
The finished length is 16", which is admittedly short, but so are my legs, so it works out.
Same lining as the jacket, because I wasn't kidding about having a lot of it left a nice smooth lining always lets a skirt hang nicely.
The pattern does not call for lining, and I'm sure that, if it did, it would probably expect hand stitching to attach it to the zipper. Of course I didn't do that.
I started by sewing the center back seam (after making the darts) and inserting the zipper. Then I sew the center back seam (and darts) of the lining,and press under the seam allowance in the opening, which I proceed to sew very awkwardly to the seam allowance of the zipper insertion. Then I sew the side seams of the shell and the side seams of the lining (with darts already sewn.) It's not pretty, but it avoids hand sewing.
And I have also started drawing the dart seam lines on the backs of the fabric with a ruler and tailor's chalk, which helps so much in reassuring me that I'm actually sewing straight lines.
The stitch depth on either side of the zipper is uneven, I acknowledge that. The thread color match is very good, so it's not too obvious, and, again, nobody should be examining it this closely.
The waistband was stitched to the outside, then flipped to the inside, where the already-pressed-under edge was pinned in place and sewn from the outside by stitching close to the waistband, because, again: hand stitching is not ever going to be my first choice.
And it went together with no problems--not even in terms of attaching the larger waistband (which I did take some liberties with--oh, and, as with the previous leftovers skirt, I had to piece the fabric to make the waistband. Pattern matching helps hide that seam.)
Maybe someday I'll make this from fabric that's longer and not in need of pattern matching, because this is such an easy pattern (and I need more skirts.)
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