Raspberry Darling SKIRT

What's a suit without a bottom half... its just a jacket.

An awesome jacket, but still just a jacket.  I want a SUIT!

The accompanying skirt has 8-gores, with the pieces wider at the bottom than they are at the top, so you end up with a lovely A line skirt.  I wasn't sure how this was going to work out with my stripey fabric however.  Pattern matching is all well and good, but sometimes near impossible.  So I decided to concentrate on getting the front and back to line up and leave the rest in the lap of the gods.

I cut out each gore so that the centre of the piece was a vertical stripe, and then bound the edges with satin bias tape.  The same as the stuff I've used in the jacket.  Can I just say you use waaaaaaaaaay more of that stuff than you think you will!!!

 Looks pretty on the inside!

I then sewed the pieces together so I had a front, a back, a right side, and a left side (with a zipper in it).  Then I sewed them all together and...

All the lines line up pretty well - even on the pieces I didn't try to line up!!!  HOORAY!!!

Then came the waistband.  I didn't use the pattern piece, as I'd had to make an adjustment to the size of the skirt.  Normally I would just cut out a rectangle, but I didn't have a piece wide enough to cut one with the stripe running horizontal, so I thought I would cut two halves... but then I realized that the front piece needed to be longer than the back piece so there would be an overlap for a press-stud or something...

Thank goodness for handy scraps of paper to scribble on!

That all sewed up easily and even went on to the skirt easily, and left me with a nice little overlap.

Please excuse awfully chipped nail polish... its on my to-do list I promise!

For the hem, I folded it up and steamed out the excess (gotta love wool!), and sewed on yet more bias tape.  I haven't hand sewed it yet, but I haven't finished all the hand sewing on the jacket yet either... I hope to get that done this week.  And here is the skirt!

I had to clip this on my headless helper for the photo, so when I put this on its slightly too big, but not so much that its a problem.  I should have realised that it was going to be a fraction big when I measured for the waistband... obviously wasn't paying enough attention at the time... I might yet take the waistband off and make it fit better...

The suit all together looks like this!

 Yes, the back of the jacket needs an iron... or a steam or something

So that's it for making the Raspberry Darling suit, but its not time for the photoshoot yet... not until I finish the hats!!!  (note: I'm not making hats, just adjusting others to be more appropriate.  I wish I could make hats... one day...)

Beccie
xxx