Tartan Skirt

(Apologies for photo. I am litterally balanced off the bath to show what this looks like on. Seriously need to clean bathroom mirror!)

I did it. Plonked in front of the telly watching Tropic Thunder (funny movie) I made a skirt! (as you do).

Background to this was I had seen a girl crossing the road when I was driving in a fantastic tartan skirt. It had three different fabrics in it and lots of movement. I was thinking along these lines when wandering in spotlight, but with the boys having meltdowns and one lost in the fabric while the girl was taking her sweet time cutting - I couldn;t bear it anymore and settled on the one fabric.

I also saw this skirt on Anthropologie.com however I cannot find it now. It had a angled drawstring up the skirt which added some texture and an asymetric hem. With this iny mind I chopped in using this pattern as my basis - I used version c.

I already knew the skirt fit so I was free to make some alterations. The bast band at the top of the skirt is the same, and I extended the length to the base of the fabric in a really basic triangle- ensuring that the checks matched. This has to be a pet peeve of mine.As you can see the checks are very dominant and I wanted more movement so I added some.I used the checks to give me a diagonal line up the front of the skirt and took some small irregular tucks which I pinned. Some go up and some go down. Then I used one of my janomes decorative stitches and went for it. I simply sewed the line, going over the tucks. When I tried it on again it was puckering a bit to one side, so I have adjusted that with one tuck on the side seam, but I am really happy with how it came out. It is really comfortable to wear and moves nicely.t