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My first sewing adventure a success, I wanted to experiment a bit more. A floaty, gathered, neutral grey skirt has been on my wishlist for a while, but nothing RTW has quite fit my ideal. So I decided to make one. Without a pattern. Why not? This polyester crepe suiting fabric was priced right for experimentation, and the teal lining would be fun. I wanted to add a zipper, too. Tilly and the Button's Picnic Blanket Skirt was my style inspiration, but I wanted it lined, with pockets and an invisible zipper. Of course - perfect project for a beginner with no pattern, right? For the lining, an A-line skirt from my closet was my pattern base. I totally winged it, cutting a front, two back halves, french seamed the side seams, hemmed the bottom (no raw edges showing), and added darts in front and back (re-sewn umpteen times in the front until they were nice & flat) to fit my waist. No work of art, but the lining won't be seen so I am okay with that. For the skirt, I cut two full-width (56") rectangles of my fabric, 4 inches longer than I wanted my skirt to be (I wanted a deep hem). Gathered the fabric using three lines of machine-sewn basting at the top. For the pockets, I used the ingenious french seam pocket tutorial by Deborah Moebes on Sew Mama Sew. And liked it so much I tore out the first set of pockets and redid them. (Well...I realized my first pockets were so small after seaming that my hand wouldn't fit through the opening, so I made them bigger the second time around...) But the tutorial is great once the sizing is figured out. I wanted a fitted, interfaced waistband incorporating the hidden zipper and the lining, so this tutorial from girl. inspired. was perfect. I ended up cutting the waistband strips from the sides of each skirt body rectangle, so the final skirt body rectangles were a few inches shorter than the 56" I started with. 107" of handsewn blind hem later, I have a skirt! My slightly wobbly beginner sewing skills and 2"-too-big-around waistband aside, I am quite pleased with how the skirt turned out. 
Don't turn on the stove...
More to come!
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