The overskirt is done!

I'm a little behind in keeping you updated on my gown.  It's been very busy here with the new season almost upon us! 

I've auditioned for the local MRAG and was scared silly!  But it all went well and it was really only to see if anyone would be paid.  I'd love to get paid to dress up, but that's all I wanted to do...go play in dress up clothes!  So in the midst of all this, we are preparing for a new grandbaby too.  He's being very stubborn in meeting us and it should be any day now.  Like father like son, huh?

While I've been busy doing all this, I did manage to get a few other things completed for my gown, not to mention a corset pattern drawn and the fabric cut out for another client.  But since I've already done the corset blog, I'm just going to talk about the overskirt.

I've already discussed cutting out the skirt panels and how they were to be put together.  It took three panels and I have enough left to do the sleeves.  That's the exciting part...but I'll talk about those later.

So the skirt panels were cut out and ready to be sewn together.  Since the fabric I'm using is a silk weave it tends to fray.  I serged around all the edges of the panels making it easier to handle them without all the little threads coming out.  This works well with big items, just as your fray check works well for smaller items. Once they were sewn together, it gave me a long piece of fabric.  The seams are already finished, so that was the good thing and they were matched selvage to selvage. 

I then measured from the center front to where I wanted the pleating to start, which was just before side waist.  Now most overskirts are completely pleated into the waistband, but I'm doing this one a bit different.  I like a challenge and this has proven to be just that.

I measured the waist area over the underskirt to make sure that I had the right measurement.  Even if you have the measurement for the waist that you used for the uderskirt, always recheck it with that skirt on.  It's extra fabric and there's nothing like having both the same measurement to only have the overskirt be too tight and uncomfortable.  I added 4" to this measurement as I want the waistband to overlap, bringing the front panels closer together.  I cut interfacing to match the measurement of the waistband and folded and sewed the edges the same as for the underskirt.

I double knife pleated this skirt as I did the underskirt.  It takes more fabric up and lays nicer.  Each side goes towards the back.  Again, I left the front section of the overskirt unpleated.  When I got the right measurements, I stitched a seam across the top of the pleats and laid it on the waistband to start pinning it in.  Once it was sewn in, I pressed the seam allowance towards the band, making it easier to fold the band down.

Here is a good closeup of the skirt attached to the waistband.  If you look close enough, you'll see that I used two rows on the waistband.  This fabric is a bit heavier than the underskirt and I don't want any chances of it coming out of the waistband.

Once it was sewn on, I folded the band over and pressed it down.  Now on this band, I allowed for an extra 1/2" on the top folded part.  The extra allows for the back of the band to be over the front of the band. Why would I do this?  Well, I'm just too dang busy to hand stitch it into place, so I stitched it closed by stitching in the ditch on the front side.

I put the overskirt on Betty over the underskirt to make sure that the waistband and the front sections were right.  They were, which is good, because I probably would have left it if it wasn't.  Like I said, it's a time thing.  While it was on Betty, I pinned the hem line to where it needed to fall.  Remember me telling you that the underskirt was hemmed up a bit higher than ground level?  This skirt is ground level.  Once it was pinned, I ironed the crease and started with the padding on the hem.  I used a navy blue corduroy that I had laying around and it worked great!  This gives it the extra body at the bottom and makes sure that it hangs straight.

As you can see, there are two sets of pins.  The hem is sewn in two spots, the top and the bottom.  This keeps the padding from shifting and makes a good solid hem.

Voila!  The overskit is done!