The Houndstooth Skirt

so i finished the houndstooth coat for class and i had at least a yard of fabric left over.  this as not on purpose, though.  my mom and i bought the amount the pattern called for, but my mom is short-waisted and as a result i had to shorten all the body pieces by at least 3 inches.  which left me with all the unexpected leftover fabric and lining.  no problems though, because i knew what i was going to do with it.  i decided i was going to make my mom a skirt.  which shows how much we think alike, because before i even mentioned anything about what i was going to do with the excess she goes, "you can make me a skirt."  well surprise, surprise i was already ahead of her!

so, for the skirt i used the same pattern from my first class assignment.  also, this time i knew how bad the fabric frayed so i was prepared.  since the skirt pieces were simple i cut them out using my rotary cutter and immediately serged all the edges once they were cut.  i even figured out how to serge the edges and turn to knife off so i didn't cut off any of my seam allowance.  this is amazing! =D

onto the skirt!

one modification i made to the pattern was by cutting the front piece into two separate pieces, instead of one, so i could get the pattern on the skirt to work out the way i wanted it to.  for the pattern on the skirt i wanted the to point down and to the sides.   so to do this i had to cut each skirt piece separately and flip and rotate my fabric.  luckily this worked out because there was really no right or wrong side to the fabric.  then, where i sewed the front pieces together down the center i did a topstitch on both sides of the middle seam.

another modification i made to the skirt was by adding a lining.  the skirt pattern is just the skirt pieces and the facing.  but i wanted to add a lining to prevent the skirt from riding up.  i simply cut the lining exactly form the pattern pieces.  i didn't worry about cutting the front in two pieces since it was on the inside and wouldn't make a difference.  i then sewed the lining pieces the way it called for but left the back open.  then it was time to attach everything to the waist.  to make this easier i basted the facing to the skirt before sewing the lining, facing, and skirt.  then i turned everything down and pressed so it would hold its shape.  due to the thickness of the fabric, though, the facing wouldn't stay down.  so to remedy this i did a topstitch BY HAND near the top.  i love the result, but boy did it take me a while, because i would get to a point and realize the stitches had started slanting up, so i had to pull it out an redo it.

once that was done i attached the lining around the zipper.  to do this i ironed under the edges of the lining and did a catch stitch to attach it to the zipper tape.  then i sewed up the back seam of the lining as close to the zipper as i could.  next the hem.

for the hem of the skirt i pressed up an inch and did a slipstitch to hold it in place.  for the lining i ironed up 1/2" and did a zig-zag stitch.  i could've been finished there, but i decided to do a bar/french tack to attach the lining to the skirt but still allow it to have free movement. this was the first time i had ever done a bar/french tack but i figured it out.  now the skirt is complete!