Autumn wheather

I have a new skirt and top to show you, but it has been too dark to take pictures all day. Cloudy and rainy, a typical Dutch autumn day.

I hope I will get a better opportunity on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, this is the skirt I've made. I hope you can see it in the picture. I was drafting this on a dark day as well. There's a sketch on the left page in this picture. A flared, pleated skirt with overlapping front pleats. It's from a patternmaking book I own (I've discussed this book before, and, then as now, I don't recommend it).

Using a flared skirt block I made over a year ago, the pattern was easy enough to draft (the back has normal pleats, the front is shown in the book, on the right page). Contrary to my habit, I used tracing paper to draft it. I figured that would allow me to fold it, in order to figure out how the pleating would really work. As I suspected, the pattern as shown results in a crazy heap of pleating at center front. And since this book is totally devoid of any form of practical information (instructions are all along the lines of 'go from point A2 to C6'. I didn't use them to draft the skirt and I think they are headache inducing and don't stimulate the reader to develop an insight in patterns), it didn't offer any help.

After considering hidden seams at the front and complicated fabric origami, I found a solution by cutting out a small section of the bottom front pleat.

When making the skirt, I had to do that bit twice because I had overlapped the pleats too far at first, making the skirt too small.

It's a long time since I have had to do so much frustrating fiddling on what seems to be such a simple garment. There's still a little flaw to the fit. But I'm just going to hope no-one will notice.

By the way, it's another mustard-yellow skirt. Now, I'm off now to make an aubergine top to go with it (maybe another drape-neck top... I know it's getting boring but they're so easy to make and so flattering).