Une jupe plissée

    Hello, dear Readers. Those of you who are following me on Instagram may have seen that some time ago I started sewing a skirt with an interesting pleat arrangement.

    The pattern is vintage Simplicity 2813 from 1958. I found it on Ebay and it came to me from the beautiful France. I love it so much I'm going to use it again and again; currently I'm thinking of navy silk shantung/dupioni or faille for the 2nd version. But back to my already sewn number 3:

 All photos by my patient Husband :)

    I used the same fabric as with my pants (I wrote about them here), a black wool blend. As with most of the vintage skirt patterns, once I've chosen the size the fit was perfect - so I made none alterations at all. Even the lenght was spot on.

 Hades the cat always wants to be the centre of attention. We're gonna forgive him, aren't we?

    The construction of the skirt is straightforward; it has side seams and center back seam as well as eight darts, which are the main reason for a good fit between waist and hips. All of the bottom part is separate, to be completed on its own and sewn to the main skirt pieces after they had been constructed as well.

A hat a day keeps the lady doctor sane :)

      On the top of the junction there is an ornamental strip of fabric, finished off with a bow (to add some texture to the bow I used Berisfords' velvet trim-the best one I've seen, found on jaycotts ).

     To get the bottom part to stand away from the skirt and accentuate the flare, I made the upper skirt-lower skirt junction as a kind of buttressed seam. That proved to be a quick solution which worked perfectly. The zipper is a lapped one, sewn by hand with prick stitches.

   The seam allowances were secured with zigzag stitch. The only struggle with this skirt was putting it the lining; I hate sewing with slippery fabrics. Even though this one was especially nice to touch and had a wonderful lustre (it's a 1980s rayon satin with a slightly irregular weave), it was a pain to sew with. I set it  in all by hand to have at least some control over this slippery devil; I wanted to attach the satin as far as it was possible to keep the lining from riding up, so I joined it to the seam allowance of the skirt's bottom part, leaving the pleats to hang freely. Still, it's the only part of the skirt that I'm not happy with.

Now all is left to do is to think about the next project :-)