And the skirt is finally finished! (Well, OK. I still need to add hooks and eyes...but almost finished!)

My next step was to decide what type of pleats I wanted to use (I decided on unpressed box pleats) and then set in the zipper.

Since I wanted the zipper to be placed on the center of a pleat I opened my seamline to the depth of the zipper and pined it in place on the basting stitches from my first attempt at fitting the tube of fabric to my form. I then clipped the seam allowance as necessary and pinned the other side of the box pleat in place to fully expose the zipper on the inner side of the skirt.

Phase One

Phase Two















I also stiched on a small piece of fabric to reinforce the skirt at the bottom of the zipper.

All Stitched















Once I could use the zipper I tried the skirt on again and adjusted the angles of my pleats/darts as necessary. Remember that I said that my waist-to-floor length varies widely? You can see that take effect in the stitching lines below.

The stitching to the left is a side-back seam. Note that my waist is smaller and higher at that point than it is at the seam on the right. The waist continues to descend as it progresses around to the front of the skirt. (2 1/2" in total.) This adjustment (and my subsequent work with scissors to even out the built-in waistband to an even 3") is my usual skirt length adjustment needed to fit my figure.


















I removed the original basting and tried on the skirt again, it fit well so I stiched all the dart/pleats in place, ironed them open into box pleats and 'stitched-in-the-ditch' to keep the pleats in place.














I used the same pink and white houndstooth ribbon to reinforce/face the waistband and voila!














I feel so Spring-y!



Just because I like you, here is the fabric for my next skirt project. Loud, isn't it? :)