thank you, gertie! an awesome gathered skirt

After my red flannel dress I wanted to make a project that would be a little quicker and allow me to practice some french seams. I decided to go sans-pattern and to make a full gathered skirt using Gertie's Full Gathered Skirt Tutorial (a great blog that I'm sure you have already discovered, and if not, go there now and check her out). I found this great quilting cotton with a graphic, old fashion scissor patter on it for about $4/yard. I know there is a lot of debate on using quilting cotton for garments, but for this skirt it worked great. It had a great weight for the gathers, was easy to sew, and the pattern of the scissors made it super easy to ensure my lines were straight, perfect for Gertie's Full Gathered Skirt with is literally two rectangles with right angles! When determining the hem instead of 27 inches it was "seven rows of scissors." How easy!

a peek inside: nice enclosed seams and a purple hem tape finish!

Now I don't wear my skirts right at my waist. At 5 feet tall, it's assumed that a higher-waist skirt would elongate my legs and make me appear long, but instead I ends up looking like I'm sitting on the floor! So measured the spot where I like to wear my skirts and used that instead. In hindsight, it came out a little too loose, so I will use a smaller measurement next time. And the waistband doesn't contour to my shape as well as it could, but with my nice grey sweater it doesn't show so it's ok! Plus, the waistband is so nicely finished using Gertie's tutorial! I've already worn it twice and will wear it again!

I did have trouble putting in the zipper. The tutorial didn't seem to leave me much room, as the raw edge of the skirt fabric comes right up to the finished edge, so I hand stitched it in and it looked just fine.  Gertie says to insert and invisible zipper using your favorite method. I've NEVER used an invisible zipper and decided to just us a regular zipper that was the same color. Next time I'll make sure to give myself some extra fabric to put the zipper in.

who needs and invisible zipper when you can hand sew a regular zipper in this nice?