So following on from explanation of my inspirations last time which would have made a single post overlong, it’s time to see what I did with the skirt of many curved edges, that is the Meringue skirt.
This Meringue is such a pretty style that I wanted to mix it up a bit & use a masculine pin stripe with the very feminine hem detail. I’d bought some wonderful wool pinstripe, a very dark navy, from my local fabric shop last year. This fabric was a bit more expensive than my usual cheapness & I wanted to do it justice.
And do it justice I did (in terms of reworking bits that didn’t cut the mustard first time around.) Yes, I actually unpicked the finished waistband, replete with buttonhole & button sewn on to correct the hem & the waistband seam that slightly missed the straight edge of the pinstripe. But I am not expecting any praise for this, don’t get me wrong. It’s the kind of thing any decent sewster covers off every make. I am just usually lazy!
This was my first make using Barbarella. She is stellar. She is already saving my sewniverse. The fit on this skirt is perfect & it if it wasn’t for her I think I would have really struggled to get the lined hem right.
I plan to follow up this post with a post devoted to lining this skirt as I found it quite a challenge & think it deserves discussion. This post will be purely a show & tell. But Barbs, I LOVE YOU!!!! You are my valentine 
Look, it’s got a satiny cerise lining – coo!! Do you like the vintage button?
It slightly peeks out at the hemline in a slightly flirty (tarty?!) way…
I wore it to a Senior Board meeting at work (in a supportive role, I am really not an important work person) & inside I trilled to think I was unconventionalising my pinstripes. The conversation might have been *very important & strategic* but I was wearing a secret bird of paradise.
And this is the waistband that I recast. I had to spend a lot of effort on the hem (more in the post to follow on lining this madam) which meant unpicking the waistband. Which was actually a good thing in my efforts to be a more perfect sewster, as you’ll see the waistband is sewn on the crosswise grain & the first time the stitching didn’t quite follow the pinstripe. It was obvious. It had to come out. How did I get it right this time??
Well, in a similar way to sewing piping I machine basted along the line of the pinstripe on the outside of the waistband piece with bright thread so that when I came to attach it to the skirt I followed the basting as my stitching line. It works so nicely.
Apologies folks – I had used Flickr to link some of my pictures, but I have since taken them off Flickr, hence the lack of pics here now. I don’t do this anymore, it was an experiment that didn’t work out for me!