*Voting ends tonight at 11 pm CST*
Flipping the skirt took a bit more brain power than the jacket and t-shirt. I didn't plan on making 2 skirts. But after a lot of thought, I decided that was the best way to add the pleats and not have a hot mess on the inside of the skirt.
The over skirt is a size 6, cut at a 3 length, and tapered to the size 2 where the overlap in the front is. I didn't top stitch the outside edge at all. To hold the overlap closed, I sewed the bottom 3 buttons in place.
Now on to those pleats! I opted for pleats vs. ruffles as I wanted a more tailored look. I cut strips of fabric 2 1/4" wide, selvage to selvage, and finished the top long edge with the serger and used a 5mm rolled hem foot for the bottom edge.
To make my pleats, I used my handy dandy seam gauge and a ton of pins.
Fold and pin...
Fold and pin...
...until the whole length of your fabric strip looks like this:
Then baste across the top to hold the pleats in place and press with your iron.
The underskirt was made using 2 of the original Chickadee Skirt back pattern pieces (size 6). I stitched the side seams together, finished the bottom raw edge with the serger, and made a casing for 1/2" elastic at the top.
Starting at the very bottom, I stitched my first row of pleated fabric (wrong side to the right side of the skirt) and worked my way up from there, overlapping each row approximately 1/2". When I got to the top, I placed my last row of pleated fabric upside down so that after I stitched it on I could press it towards the skirt and top stitch so the serged edge is concealed.
That's a lot of pleats!
Confession time...For my reveal, the underskirt wasn't completely covered in pleats. I had only bought 1/2 yard of the blue fabric and quickly ran out of it. Who knew that pleats took up so much fabric? I do now! There were 3 rows of pleats all around and then I had 4 more rows where the over skirt came together. If I hadn't procrastinated so much, I would have had time to buy more fabric and finish it before I needed to take pictures.
In the end, it took 1 1/2 yards of the blue fabric to cover the underskirt. All told, I spent probably 6 hours pleating fabric and sewing it on to the underskirt. But the final look of the 2 skirts together was worth all that work.:)
