Dolly's seventh entry; or, I see plaid and thread when I close my eyes.

Alright, so I'm sure I mentioned Erin giving me a lot of fabric. I probably didn't mention the fact that my mom, in her infinite generosity, brought a bunch of stuff to the Burrow that I'd needed for my sewing ventures, including a magnetic pincushion (literally one of the best things ever invented) and some fabric squares she had cut forever ago with plans of making them into a quilt. I thought that was nice enough; I could maybe make a patchwork apron. What I didn't realize was that, hidden underneath all those squares was a good three yards of Newfoundland tartan.

When I saw it, I had to make something out of it. Recently, Erin and I have been sharing a love of pleated plaid skirts, so it's no surprise that the first thing that came to my mind was a skirt. That was last night. I took the box of fabric down to the Burrow and started playing around with it, and realized that it was a lightweight cotton. While that's lovely, I wanted something with a bit more weight (in retrospect, I'm really glad I thought of that), and went rooting through the fabric Erin gave me to find the heavy black cotton. It's almost a soft canvas, it's so heavy. Anyways, my first step was to line the tartan with the black.

That's my sewing table with (obviously) the tartan and black sewn together. I was in the process of ironing it (which explains the iron. . . ) Please excuse the messy room in the background. . .

The next picture really doesn't do justice the amount of trouble I had with the pleats. I can't even count the times I redid them, trying to get them to lay right, or to be evenly distributed; I'd pleat and pin, then hold it up to my waist and the pleats spread at my hips and made them look huuuuge. This was one of my versions of the pleats. They didn't stay like that.

After much trial and error, I figured out that if I didn't want the pleats to spread so high, I shouldn't pleat so high. The solution? Darts. Well, sort of; I'm not sure if what I did is technically a dart, but it worked well eventually. This next picture was taken right after I figured out that I had to flatten the top so the skirt didn't flare so high. I pinned it where I planned to make the darts end.

After I pinned it there, I had to try it on to see how it fell. I fell in love. I still sort of wish I'd made it the way it is in the picture below, but it was a bit tight and really, really high on my waist (pretty much my chest), so it would have been hard to wear with anything but like. . . a tight black shirt. Still though. Don't those pleats look lovely?

Just another picture of the high-waisted version to show just how high the waist was.

I took that off, and decided I should wear it lower. So I folded the top in half and pinned it. I tried it on (there are pictures of that, but they're blurry and redundant), and decided I liked it and sewed it in place.

I don't have any pictures of the next step (I think), but all I did was cut a strip of fabric that I thought was the right length (I've never been great with measurements. . . ) and sew it onto the top to cover the folded pleats. I machine stitched the front to give it a clean look, but if I'd machine stitched the back, there would have been another line of stitching visible on the front, so I decided to hand stitch it with a simple whipstitch. Honestly, other than the pleats, the hand stitching took the longest of everything else.

and another picture of the hand stitching process, up close. My stitches are so messy. . .

Alright, so, after that all I had to do was hem the edges, and there would have been no point in taking pictures of that. It's pretty straightforward.

So, the finished product! Well, nearly finished. I still need to get some buttons for the closure. It closes in the front. . .which wasn't intentional. As I was trying to get the pleats right, I kept experimenting with different things. When I finally got it to look like what I thought was right, I put it on and. . . I'd made the pleats too big. It wouldn't close in the back. So, ever the problem solver, I turned it and tried to see what it'd look like to close on the side. Nope. Another quarter turn and. . . BAM. It looked like a kilt. I squealed excitedly; that meant I wouldn't have to add fabric and make it look like I hadn't, which would have meant very careful, neat seams. Luckily, I didn't have to do that, and so now it closes in the front. Thereforeeee I don't want to use a zipper. . . I'm thinking buttons.

For the moment, however, I just closed it with safety pins (punk look, right?) and put a belt over the waistband, seen below the picture of the finished product on my sewing table.

It's not hanging quite right, but don't blame that on the skirt; I put it on around 1 am, after working on it nearly nonstop since around 11 the night before. I slept for 6 hours and showered, and ate while I worked. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the skirt and couldn't get my mind to stop trying to problem solve. I'm so glad it's done; I can't wait to wear it out.

Whew. If you're still reading after all that, thank you. <3

I have plans in the works to make Erin a skirt out of the leftover tartan; I'll be sure to post pictures of it; too. :D

Seriously though, I'm super proud of this skirt. I never finish any of my projects. I haven't finished my curtains, and they're literally just a rectangle of fabric that needs to be hemmed. I think it was the fact that this is something that I can actually wear.

Anyway, I intend to wake up at a decent hour tomorrow. I was up until after 5 because I couldn't get my mind off the skirt, and I woke up around 2:30 this afternoon. I'd like to have more daylight to my day . . . just saying.

I'm hopefully going to the Nest this weekend; I'm sure there's another update in the near future. <3