I'm a dork.

I just have to have everything filed away neatly!  I have one more finished object from 2012, and since today is the last day, I want to get it entered.  Silly, I know, but I just can't help myself!

Today I don't have time to put this on and model it, because I'm busy making Alice Medrich's Gateau Royale and some Turkish Borek to take over to a friend's this evening.  But I did take pictures the other day when the sun was out, so I can at least share those.

This is my second go with the Inverted Pleat Skirt pattern from Burda magazine.  This time I made it in Anna Maria Horner's Loulouthi Velveteen, in the bronze colorway of a design called Summer Totem.

The first time I made this skirt, you may remember, I was not pleased with the fit - the pattern as designed is for a skirt that sits on the hip.  So before starting, I took a half inch off each side seam and repositioned the darts.  This version sits just below the waist, which is where I wanted it to be.  Score!

I only had one yarnd, and the AMH velveteen wasn't quite wide enough to accomodate the very wide panel for the pleat, so I ended up having to remove an inch and a half at the center front as well, and sewing a shallower pleat.  But this doesn't affect the fit at all.

Another thing I wasn't crazy about with my first version was that the lining was a little too flimsy for my wool outer.  I thought about lining this one in cotton lawn, but in the end I decided to forgo a lining altogether and just draft a facing.  After wearing my first skirt a few times, I felt like the lining just made everything shift around too much.  This fabric is quite heavy already and I didn't want to add any more bulk, especially since I always wear a slip, whether a skirt has a lining or not.  This was my first time drafting a facing, and even though it's a pretty simple thing to do, I was proud of myself for doing it - I'm usually very lazy about that kind of thing!

You can see that I also hand-stitched the hem to make it truly invisible, and only folded the hem allowance back once because the fabric is so bulky.

I was surprised that the velveteen was more difficult to work with than I'd expected it to be.  The layers wanted to shift sideways, so it was hard to get my seams even - I even ended up picking out the left side seam and re-doing it.  Of course on the very last seam I decided to switch to my brand-new roller foot and that worked wonders!  Lesson learned!

I'm really in love with this fabric, and very happy with how my skirt turned out.  After I took these pictures, I spent some time trying lots of different sweaters with it - there are so many colors in this print, it goes with a lot!

OK, now that that's taken care of,  2012 can end, and I can come back tomorrow and tell you what I'm thinking about for 2013!

Have a safe and happy New Year's Eve, everybody!