Christmas 2014: Map Skirt

  This skirt turned out perfect for the recipient. I made this for my youngest sister-in-love... a talkative, adventurous young lady with strong preferences. With her yearning for travel, love of history, and penchant for book-reading, vintage-style map fabric was exactly what I needed. I searched all over the place for a map fabric that was the right style, but didn't cost $20 a yard, and finally found one here.

  Isn't that fabric great? I initially decided to make a simple gathered skirt, so I only bought 2 yards of the fabric. However, the more I thought about it, the less I wanted a gathered one. Instead, I took some measurements from a skirt this sister-in-love left at my house (conveniently for me, I might add), and drafted a paneled circle skirt. But a knee length circle-skirt for a tall young lady requires a good bit more fabric than 2 yards, especially when it's only 44" wide! So I narrowed the panels quite a bit and ended up with something that's just a bit wider than a half-circle:

  I made it with 6 panels, a simple lined yoke, and an invisible zipper in the side seam. The seams are serged on the inside due to time constraints, and I stitched in the ditch on the outside to catch the yoke lining... which turned out really well! The best stitching-in-the-ditch I've ever done, in fact. =)

  For the hem, I stitched with a basting stitch at 3/4", folded it up along the stitching, then tucked the raw edge underneath and stitched again. Adding the first row of stitching made it much, much easier to turn and press the hem. I did un-pick that row after taking these photos. ;-)

  I didn't quite manage to line the invisible zipper up at the bottom of the yoke, but since I still had 8 gifts left to make, I decided to leave it.

  It fit her perfectly! And sat comfortably below her waist, exactly where I hoped it would. =)

  I'm really, really happy with how this one turned out. =)

  I just have a few more posts to wrap up the Christmas gifts I made, then I'll move on to some things I sewed more recently!
Thanks for stopping by,