Pattern Play + Gorgeous Fabric + Couture Sewing = Pencil Skirt Excitement!

I'm *so* excited about my current sewing project that I'm going to tell you everything! Really, really excited. Like, I-might-explode excited. Wow, I hope I don't bore you with the uber-sewing-geekiness of this post. Here goes:

After my successful wax cloth pencil skirt, I couldn't wait to start playing with my self-drafted pattern. I know, what could be so exciting about a pencil skirt?  Just go with me here.

So, as you recall I had been thinking about sewing a matching bustier style top to go with the skirt, but I put that on hold after a few muslins didn't work out. I had already bought boning and I had taken a Building a Bustier class with Kenneth King, and I'm currently in the middle of watching Susan Khalje's Couture Dress Craftsy class. All of these things swirling in my brain started to converge into the idea of a high-waisted couture-style pencil skirt.

Like this.

Here's what's done...

Pattern: I traced off my pencil skirt (minus seam allowances), converting two of the four front darts into princess seams, and then added a 4 inch extension for the high waist. I did this by extending the seam lines straight up, slightly changing the dart width to address the very slight difference in size between my waist and midriff. Then I added 1" seam allowances. 

Center Front Piece with extension

Side front with dart with extension

Muslin:  Once I was happy with the drafting, I cut and carefully marked a muslin of just the top 8 inches of skirt - the waist extension to four inches below the waist, so that I could see how my drafted changes worked. 

Muslin

The other reason I chose just the top 8 inches, is that I will use boning in this area to make sure that the waist doesn't collapse. Since my (very firm) muslin fit perfectly, I decided to use it as the layer that will hold the boning - basically a built in corselette, to support the skirt's high waist. 

 
One of the things I learned in Kenneth King's class is that it's perfectly fine to use rigilene  boning.  For my first project that required boning, I used spiral steel boning, which is wonderful, but more time consuming to work with. The nice thing about rigilene is that you can sew right on it instead of having to add casings to contain the bones like you would with steel spiral. I think this is the right decision for a skirt that is a blend of RTW and couture techniques.

With boning

Fabric: One of my best recent Garment District discoveries is Beckenstein Fabrics/Fabric Czar. They do bespoke tailoring and also sell beautiful suiting, linings and shirtings. My discovery: they have a remnant table where you can get 1-ish yard cuts of crazy beautiful suiting for $40 (aka less than a pencil skirt at Banana Republic). The 1 1/3 yard piece I bought is a gorgeous wool with a textured weave. It's so unbelievably soft that I suspect that there is some cashmere in it. Also, it was 64" wide. More than enough for my skirt.

Wool suiting from the Fabric Czar

And since I was now working with beautiful suiting, I decided that it needed equally awesome underlining. So, I pulled out this leopard print silk organza from my stash. It's from my "hot sauce" haul of fabrics.

Leopard print silk organza - it's somewhat darker in person

Sewing: Fabrics were cut, underlining was basted by hand to the suiting, and the lining (Bemberg) was sewn last week. This past weekend, the skirt seams were sewn, too, and I've been catch-stitching the seam allowances to the underlining during the week. So, this is really moving along. I've been doing a blend of couture techniques (mostly hand sewing) and machine/RTW sewing.  I think this has been the best bang for the buck for this project.

My catch-stitched seams

I still have a lot to do. I have to sew in the zipper, which I may do by hand. Also, I need to finish the slit. Oh. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I decided that instead of a vent or slit in the back, there will be a slit on one of the princess seams on the front, a la Vogue 8873 view A. Lastly, all the layers need to be joined at the waist where I will also add a waist stay. Then, I'll just have to hem.

Have you ever been so excited by a project that your sewing geek side really goes bananas?