Japanese cotton sateen skirt

I recently purchased a few cheap New Look patterns online, but didn't have any suitable fabrics for them. A visit to Spotlight and $98 later, I ended up with an assortment of designs that I could instantly picture as dresses and skirts.

I decided that the red and cream Japanese cotton sateen floral print would work perfectly as a skirt, and cut out the pieces for view D of this (minus the bows).

This is a really simple skirt to make (I even followed all of the instructions to the letter without cutting corners!). That said, I always struggle to get outside pockets looking as perfect as they should be. Even though my pocket stitching is a little wonky on the rounded corners, it's not too noticeable as the fabric is vibrant enough to detract away from it.

I made a size 8, which sits a little lower on the hips than I'd like. This is probably because I'm used to making high-waisted skirt designs, but I think next time I might make a 6. If I omitted the pockets, I could very easily sew the skirt together in under two hours.

Black denim meringue skirt

I bought the Colette Sewing Handbook earlier this year, but hadn't tackled any of its projects until this weekend. I'd had my eye on the meringue skirt, so decided to try and make a black denim version.

While this is a very easy pattern to make, it's extremely fiddly in terms of hand-sewing and pressing. I decided to ignore a lot of the pattern instructions and do whatever the hell I wanted, because I consider myself some sort of sewing renegade. Or maybe I'm just impatient and like to cut corners.

Anyway, this took forever due to turning in and pressing all of the scalloped edges. I'm still not entirely happy with the curves, so I haven't fully hand-stitched the hem yet in case I want to try and round the edges some more. You see how I look cranky? That's because I am. How unusual.

I decided to use a black and white gingham for the facing. It's probably a little too light for this kind of thing, and I probably would have been better off using a heavier cotton.

I like this skirt design, but I probably wouldn't make it again. I spent at least two hours cutting the pattern and fabric, and about six hours constructing the skirt (including pressing and hand-sewing). There are plenty more skirt patterns that look just as good and require far less (or no) hand-stitching, so this won't become one of my staple designs.