Work Skirt

Boyfriend kindly bought me The Burdastyle Sewing Handbook (I used the burdastyle website A LOT) for Christmas and I immediately decided to stop my search for a new work skirt (must be black, appropriate length/fabric for work but also fun and cute) and make one using the skirt pattern in the book. 

So nearly two months later I finally did it! There are very few fabric shops around here and finding plain black fabric was actually quite difficult, then I read the pattern instructions and discovered I had to trace the pattern piece out, the way the book tells you to do it is to use special carbon paper and a wheely thing to trace the lines.  So I had to order those and await they're arrival (which obviously involved two trips to the Post Office depot). 

I've had some time off this week so I set to it. The skirt design has an under and shorter outerskirt, I bought some plain black cotton for the outer and black flowery lace for the under.  Firstly having to trace the pattern pieces out was very annoying and obviously left plenty of opportunity for mistakes in pattern translation to creep in.  You have to add your own seam allowance and as a result all my pieces had different allowances (would that cause problems later?).  Also, using their prescribed method, I found it impossible to trace in a straight line, so all my pieces were a bit wonky.  It took about an hour to cut the pieces out, which was enough for Sunday evening. 

I got the bulk of the skirt made on Monday afternoon, although I found the instructions confusing especially those regarding interfacing.  My interfacing was bought cheap and came with no instructions, so I ironed it to the fabric yoke pieces and it went white and I thought I wonder how the lace will cover that up.  The book did not help me here and I improvised by cutting another yoke and sewing them together to hide the interfacing. 

The skirt was quite easy to put together, I sewed the front side pieces to the centre front, the back side pieces to the back pieces and the the front to the back.  Added the yoke (waistband) and the invisible zip. 

Of course it was too big for me, perhaps I chose the wrong size but also having seam allowances that were all over the place wont have helped.  I replaced the zip several inches further in, and resewed.  It's still a little big and wonky but I think it's the best I can get it.  It's quite hard to alter because of the overskirt.  And here's how I'd wear it for work (well I have a work shirt which I wear over the grey top).