Subtle Alterations to a Not Quite Right Skirt....

I made a skirt at the beginning of the year - what I call my first blog skirt.  I was determined to make a good first impression, and did a good job of an adaptation of a New Look skirt - complete with the suggested style length.

And even I was not happy - taking photo's for blogs was a new thing for me!

I wore it a few times in winter, but really was not happy.  The skirt was just a touch too long.  And proportions with a jumper or top were half/half and very dowdy looking.

I also wasn't happy with the width of the waist band - I like them just a little wider.  And normally I insert zips well, but I think I was a little anxious about showing all of you my work - so I have a few wobbles on the left hand side which I had ignored, except obviously I hadn't, as I was a little irked every time I saw the offending wobblies.

I also did not like the kick pleat - I think the fabric was a little soft for it  (a softer stretch cotton sateen).
So I undid it and cut of some of the length to the new hem length (yes, I made a mistake and forgot to add the allowance - easy to fix, I'll show you later...)

I re-inserted the zip on the left hand side and attached a new waistband - looks good inside now, doesn't it?

Now, when we get to redoing the kick pleat area - notice there is a little mark where  thread pulled - I hate that.  I tried to cover it - pens can work, but was not happy.  I'll show you one of my other tricks for little issues like this later...  I have turned the kick pleat into a split at the bottom of the skirt - I have sewn across the top, but hemmed the turnback by hand - slip stitch.

At top of the split, I actually make a little bar tack reinforcement - I do this with a few hand stitches.  There is a "proper" way of doing this, but for run of the mill clothes, I find this works well enough and is not that noticeable.  You can also anchor a hook and eye behind it - it just helps take any tension so that you don't split the seam:

In any case, it will be covered, along with the offending pulled thread with a daisy - I keep bits of guipure lace on hand for such emergencies. 

Voila- A nice little quirky feature instead of a pulled thread that annoyed me:

Now I must show you what to do if you accidentally cut of the hem allowance, or maybe there is not enough fabric for a hem allowance.  Make a blind hem.

I used a 1 inch (2 cm) bias binding strip and attached that.  I then finished the hem by hand- very neatly.  I quite enjoy hand stitching:

Much much happier:

If you look closely, you can see the little daisy (and you can see I've been wearing socks today!)

Now I love this skirt and will wear it a lot - I liked the fabric so much I actually have another skirt length put away for when this one is no longer wearable :)

Have a great weekend everyone, and tomorrow I will post an update on the Make a Garment a Month Challenge.

Sarah Liz :)