Finished: High Waisted Couture Style Skirt! Yaaaayyy!

Here's my couture style high waisted skirt! With the holidays coming, and lots of occasions for dress up, I decided to style it as a day-to-evening outfit for these photos. And I even used props and accessories for the photo shoot. So, you know I'm super excited (!!!!) about how it came out.

For day, I'd wear it with a cropped jacket and boots...

On my commute (prop coffee mug and tote)

I'm just as happy with the fit of this skirt as the original version. Really, for a pencil skirt for me, self drafted is the way to go. As a reminder, I took my original draft, and converted two front darts into princess seams and extended the waist by 4 inches (details here).

Hmm, maybe a final pressing would have been advisable. Oh well.

My original skirt had an extra pair of front darts which, for the pear shaped/those who have a significant difference between their waist and hips, helps prevent distortion over the hips. You couldn't really see the darts in my original wax cloth skirt due to the busy print. However, here you can see that my skirt actually has that extra set of darts next to the princess seams.

Someone needs a haircut. Yikes!

Given that it was an afterthought, I'm really pleased with how the front slit came out.  It didn't occur to me until after I was half done sewing that it would be more fun to move it to the front, but I'm glad I did. It's really rather functional and I love the style.

Front slit

OK, so now you've seen one way I could wear it to the office (really, I have loads of options!). But here's where I decided to change for an evening affair.  A quick change of shoes and accessories plus an up-do transform the outfit for a holiday outing or date... (Pretend it's night time and I'm off to somewhere elegant, like a holiday concert or party.)

I can sit in it!

Here you can see how high the boned waist comes:

I may take some additional photos with a different color top so that you can see the waist a bit better. The corselette is definitely doing it's job. I'm not sure that slouching in this skirt is really an option. 

So, here is my hand-picked zipper. I think I like it. I'm not 100% sure, but that's more because of my imperfect execution rather than anything inherently wrong with hand picked zippers. It's supposed to create a little dome/spine where the fabric meets at the zipper, which it does. This is supposed to relax after a few wearings so that it lays flat. We shall see! 

Hand picked zipper

 I think that's all there is to tell about the outside of the skirt....

Date night!

So now, for those of you who like to see all the inner workings, here are some of the inside details...

Waist stay

I added a grosgrain waist stay to anchor the skirt and bones to my waist. The only thing I didn't think of was that I would be tucking a top into the skirt most likely. But there is enough wiggle room for it to go under the stay, anyway.

Waist stay and hanging loop

Above you can see that I tacked the stay in to all the seams and darts, making sure to go thru to the corselette, but not to the outside. Also, I added silk ribbon as hanging loops. When I'm wearing the skirt, they lay flat along the inside of the waist. But when I hang it: 

Hung up inside out.

Here's the lining, which I finished with narrow hem lace. 

Lining at the hem

And underneath, here is the hem and seams. I finished the hem with hem lace and I left the seams raw and catch stitched down with red thread for fun. 

Finished details

Lastly, here is the slit from the inside. At first, I just attached the lining with it's beautiful lace edge with a thread chain at the hem. But during the photo shoot it kept peeking out. So, I'm going to slip or fell stitch it in place before I wear it out.

I don't really think that there is much else that I would have done differently. I had several hold-ups making this skirt because of my travels and schedule, but it came together very quickly in terms of hours spent on it. Working with my custom skirt pattern definitely helped. Also, for the amount of work that I wanted to do, I think I picked the right blend of couture and regular sewing techniques. The beautiful fabrics that I was working with - textured wool suiting from Beckenstein and leopard organza from Paron - kept me motivated and behaved beautifully at every step.

Ready for the holidays!

So that's it! I think my skirt is classic, but sexy and I feel like I've made it my own with all the beautiful details. And now I plan to wear it non-stop for all of the holiday functions that I have coming up. Woot! And I have a few tops in the works, so expect to see it in a supporting role in future projects.

All posts about my skirts can be found under the label Pimp My Skirt.