Minerva Bloggers Network - Christmas Tartan Skirt

Hello there! Well, winter is definitely here - all my gloves and scarves are out and in use, and the light fades at around 4.00 most days. There's a definite need for warm and woolly clothes. And with Christmas just around the corner, what better choice for a project for this time of year than a tartan woolen skirt. 

I found this brilliant wool fabric from Minerva, which was labelled as a 'coat dress weight'. For a moment I thought it may be too chunky for what I had in mind, but when it arrived I realized it was just right - not too heavy, but just that little bit thicker than your average fabric. I wanted a sort of pencil skirt, but with something different about it. I took inspiration from a lovely flouncy skirt that Ozzy Blackbeard had recently made, as well as the trend in the 40's and 50's for floating panels and swing coats and jackets, where fullness and movement were often at the back of the garment. 

I decided to use my own self drafted pencil skirt for the front half of the skirt, then combined it with this pattern from Burda for the back:

Modell 122 Burda Style 09/2014

I actually took the draped panel from the front of the dress, and shifted it to the back of my skirt.

And this is what I came up with:

I think this is the first time I've ever worked with a tartan or plaid. Whenever I've worked with any kind of repeating pattern like this, I usually find it's all about making choices as to which parts will match and which parts just won't, and how much effort you actually want to put in. As you can see from the picture above, I decided to concentrate on just making sure the horizontal lines were level, but there was no way the colours were going to meet up because of the nature of the tartan.

Centre back seam close up

But one thing I did do to make life easier (or maybe because sometimes I'm just really lazy) was to leave out side seams altogether:

No side seams!

 Because the skirt was straight up and down at the sides with no flare, I was able to overlap the pattern pieces at the side and cut the skirt in one piece. There's just a seam at the centre back and darts at the tops of the sides where the front and back pieces curved. No side seams meant I was able to cut down on the amount of pattern matching I had to do - yay!

I also decided to match the waistband where I could at the centre front. What the pattern decided to do after that I left up to fate!:

Centre front waist band

The fabric is pretty soft, not too itchy, but I lined it to avoid any of that scratchiness:

And that's my Christmas tartan skirt, which I think will be perfect for Christmas day. I've already practised eating in it, and can report it can handle quite large amounts of food, so all's good there! 

See you soon!