Almost done!

I'm nearly done with my skirt! I still need to sew the head and hand finish around the zipper. I'm including a few pictures of the skirt on the table now but will model it when I get finished. I was surprised when I tried it on last night how plain it is. I loved the brown and wanted a plain skirt but am not sure it is really the best color for me. I'll see what I have to go with it when I'm done.

This is my first invisible zipper! It went in relatively painlessly but I am still working on hand sewing down the top of the zipper so I can fold the seam allowance down.

I actually zigzagged the edges of most of my pieces so that I wouldn't have a bunch of it unraveling. As you can see, this fabric frays a lot so I either need to do something else to the edges or make a closer zigzag. I might try French seams next time.

Skirt snags

The first snag on the skirt showed up pretty quickly. I cut the pattern pieces out and prepped them. After adding the cute pleat pieces, I got down to the tough part: sewing to see if it would fit. The pattern directions recommend sewing 1" seam allowances on the right and left sides all the way from the bottom to the top. This meant that I had to remember to keep the seam allowance for the yoke to 5/8". I sewed the side seams inside out as instructed. This is so that you can see the side seams when you try it on. I'm not sure that that approach is very helpful to me since I had 1" pieces of fabric showing. So, I tried it on and as I expected, the waist was too small at the top. This is where I start to learn to fit. Since the yoke is curved and I am not, I just sort of sewed a straight line from about the widest part of my hips to the largest part of the yoke. It did work in that now the waist fits me about where it is supposed to do. I think all I need to do is take the yoke apart and cut a new one with the new dimensions. Hope that works! Next will be fixing the hips. My hips don't go out much, so I need to take in some fabric from the back side, but I might need to add some to the front so that the seam on the side stays straight. I keep reminding myself that future skirts (and maybe dresses) should be easier because I am figuring this out and NOT giving up!