Skull skirt

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had picked up a pattern for a gathered skirt from Sew Over It. This skirt is now finished.

I thought that putting the zip in would be the hardest part, but that was surprisingly easy and I'm very pleased with how good it looks. The gathers were the thing that completely stumped me as they wouldn't gather. After ripping them out twice and watching countless tutorials on Youtube I found the answer in my 1978 edition Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing. It turns out that for long lengths of fabric it's advisable to do gathers in several sections, rather than all in one go. In the end I did the gathers in four evenly-sized sections and managed to attach the waistband without any further difficulties.

The material came from kidsfabrics.co.uk (it's in the “Pirates” section if anybody's looking for something similar). It's probably a bit heavy for this pattern; the skirt doesn't really have much movement to it. (Sadly, the majority of light-weight cotton fabrics appear to be floral prints, which aren't really my thing.) There's also a minor problem with the high waistband. The top of the waistband doesn't fit snugly against my waist, although the bottom of the waistband does. It's a small gripe, but I think if I made this again I'd make the waistband shorter for a better fit. Two days after posting this I realised that I'd never wear the skirt as long as it had a baggy waistband, so I cut the top of the waistband open, folded it inside itself and sewed it shut. It now fits and I doubt anybody will notice the alteration.