Arches Skirt

  For my sister's birthday in March, I decided to sew up the Decades of Style 1940's Arches skirt that I'd picked up on Black Friday last year. I didn't have a fabric that would be suitable, so after some searching I ordered some twill from Style Maker Fabrics. 

  I love the style lines on the front of this skirt! I'm hoping to make one of these for myself at some point:

  The back is just a simple, darted a-line with an invisible zipper:

 

  This fabric is pretty heavy, so I was worried about sewing those darts but they worked all right!

  I had bought some skirt hooks to sew in the waistband above the invisible zipper, but they were quite a bit too wide for the narrow waistband, so I ended up using a sew-in snap:

  The front arches are sewn with a lapped seam, and I really wasn't sure how to finish them... I considered a lining, but this fabric is thick enough that I didn't want to add even a lightweight lining, so I ended up doing a sort of facing for the front only:

  I converted the front of the skirt to a darted a-line shape using a tip from this sew-along and cropped it to just cover the tops of the pleats, then basted it to the front before sewing the side seams and waistband, but after sewing the lapped seams and pleats.

  I don't have a lot of lightweight lining sort of fabrics, so I used this brown, and serged the rest of the interior seams with brown to match. I realized later that the lining fabric was slightly discolored, which was disappointing, but fortunately it's not visible on the outside! I had used a blue wash-out marker to mark everything, and washed it out before taking photos, which is why the skirt is a bit rumpled-looking! 

  I was pretty pleased with the pattern- I would definitely be willing to buy another from this company! And I'm happy to report that the skirt fit my sister!

Thanks for stopping by,