Draped Pencil Skirt

Wow... so I'm a terrible sister.  I draped this skirt for my sis in January 2018, and haven't done anything since then (yes, over a year)!  Sometimes I  find myself with half-finished projects which I want to have done, more than I want to do them!  Terrible. 

However, as it's been a while since I posted, let me show you the in-progress pictures and explain what I did.  Normally, I switch to present tense for the project diary, but this project was so long ago, and the way I did it is not how I would do it today, so I'll stick to past tense. 

DRAPING

The draping was simple and interesting.  I started with one long rectangle of fabric and pinned the cardinal points: CF, sides, and CB.  Then I adjusted the rest with darts to make the skirt hang straight. 

Weird camera angle is weird.

pinning out the diagonal fold

Now, if I had cut the original rectangle in half and pinned that way, I would have ended up with the front piece shorter than the back, because of her posture and her bum.  But since I had one long rectangle, the front and back were attached, and I ended up with a diagonal fold in the front, which I pinned out to make an interesting style line. I was expecting there to be a dart there, as on most skirt patterns, but I wasn't expecting it to be so diagonal or to extend into the side seam! 

Then, because she has a marvelous backside, I made three darts instead of the usual one.  As I pinned, I was reminded of the way Victorian bodices often have multiple underbust darts instead of the one we are used to.  I imagine that's because the bodices were fitted to the individual women, and multiple smaller darts just do a better job of following unique curves.  

Front view

Side view, see how the front dart relates to her posture?

Back view

MARKING THE PATTERN

Having pinned the pattern on half of her body, I took it off her, and marked the seam lines, first with chalk, then by sewing them with basting stitches, then thread-tracing.  Finally I cut the basting stitches out and transferred the thread-tracings to the other side, too, to get a complete skirt pattern. 

Front, pinned

Back, pinned

I was intending this to be an A-line skirt, but I made a bone-headed error when cutting the side, so it became a pencil skirt.  However, I can make the pattern an A-line later, or a wiggle skirt. 

Cutting the basting stitches on the back darts

The front, in progress

This may seem like a lot of work.  Why not just sew the thing up immediately?  The reason is that I wanted to make a pattern I could use for multiple skirts for her. 

Front pattern.

Back pattern.

Now, half a year later, I look at the whole process and I feel encouraged, for two reasons:

1. seeing all the ways I could have draped this better, I also see how I have learned and grown;
   
2. I still love the cool the seamlines on this skirt, and it makes me want to re-visit it. 
   

Now... where did I put this pattern...? 

Yup, I'm a terrible sister!