Playing with Plaid

This is my Christmas skirt.  I finally found a use for this heavy duty wool coating that has been taking up a ton of space in my fabric bureau, and I figured that the red and green color combo was suitably festive.

Once I knew that I wanted to make a circle skirt, I pulled out Vogue 2902.  I know it seems silly, but having a pattern to work off of is so much easier for me than taking measurements and trying to figure out if I have enough fabric.  The dress pattern uses a circle skirt, so I just borrow that pattern piece.

After figuring out the best way to deal with the very large pattern repeat (I didn't have quite enough to match side seams), I cut out a shaped waistband.

I added pieces of boning to the waistband lining to keep the wide waistband from collapsing during wear.

After the plaid matching attempt, the waistband was probably the most time consuming part of the project.

Once that was complete, I inserted a zipper by hand at the center back.

And I absolutely bound those raw edges with rayon seam binding!

Before hand stitching the waistband lining in place, I added ribbon hangers to each side of the skirt.  I do this for most of my skirts, but I knew this would be absolutely necessary with this heavy fabric - there is no way one of those flimsy clip skirt hangers could handle this baby!

I often forget to add the ribbons until I am halfway through my hand stitching, but this time I managed to pull out my box of satin ribbon before pinning the waistband into place!

And then on to hemming . . .  The hem dropped significantly along the bias, and I am really surprised at how much it did.  I anticipated that the weight of the fabric would make it stable.  It does drape nicely, however, which I suspect is why it was necessary to even things out.

And then there was a bit more hand sewing.

I just love a good catch-stitch!  And the hem means this lady is finished!