Finished - selfish ikat skirt

There's not been a lot of finished projects lately around here, but there are a lot of WIP's at the moment. I'm about 3/4 of the way through my Purl Soho lattice top, and am determined to finish it by the end of the month. I'm currently waging war against diagonal bust/armpit fold lines with the Colette Laurel and yesterday I made a muslin for the Named Pattern Tyler shirt and should be cutting that out tonight - very exciting! I promised my love I'd make him some clothing during August and his Jedediah shorts are 99% finished - I just have to hem them, and am just waiting on him to try them on and decide on a finished length. I made the bulk of them a couple of weeks ago, and am reasonably happy with the finish, but in the midst of it all I had a little mini selfish tanty and decided after a full day of sewing grey twill that wasn't destined to be worn by me I needed to make something nice!

I found this unusual cotton at Spotlight a while ago during one of their (seemingly weekly) sales and couldn't resist it. It's made in India, and is a beautiful indigo blue, and very soft, and reminded me a little of everyday men's kimono fabrics from Japan. I loved the stripes and the subtle ikat design - I'm not normally into ikat fabrics but as soon as I saw it I was imagining a full summer skirt.

So late that night I decided it was the right time to cut it out and whip it up! Now after significantly overanalysing self drafted full skirts (like Gertie's) I was worried that a full rectangle gathered over my hips would be too bulky, and after reading this post on Kathryn's blog on her gathered A-line dirndl skirt I decided that I'd use the skirt from the Peony, but add some extra width on both pieces to make it fuller. It kind of worked, but I sort of forgot that my fabric had stripes, and the Peony hem is curved.....I used the waistband from my Charlotte skirt and attached it the same way. The fabric is quite an open weave so I bound the edges of the back seam before inserting an invisible zip, and did french seams on the side seams. I was a bit lazy and didn't trim my threads properly before doing the frenchies, which resulted in the need for a little trimming:

Don't you hate that! It's a bit like thinking your bikini line is under control, heading off to the pool then looking down and realising.....aaaaagh! Anyway.

I was too lazy to put pockets in (laziness seems to be a theme of this post - note to self - do not start a project late at night) because I would have had to make slash pockets to be able to french seam them. It's a nice lightweight easy skirt to wear - now all we need is some  warm weather!

I thought I'd show you my 'tripod' set up - I was very excited to finally work out a combination that allows full length photos against my wall. Who needs a tripod when you have a giant cat pole, a box and a pair of socks to stick under your camera lens (Mary - that is your giveaway parcel BTW - sailing it's way to Italy now!)?