Wrestling with skirt sizes

Yesterday I enjoyed hand stitching the binding to this little quilt. I hearby name this little table centre "Birds On A Wire".


Pieced flying geese, and contour lines quilted in, really fit the name.



Just finished at my local sewing group yesterday.


The binding is machine stitched onto the Wild Geese lap quilt too, but not stitched down yet.

And while I was there with the girls, I cut out a Christmas skirt I had been planning to make for quite some time.

There are some very experienced garment makers in my group, so I asked them to help me take my measurements, as they seemed to be telling me I was a size 20.

Yes. According to this pattern, I was a U.S. size 20. I put it down to the fact that it is a "misses" or teenage girl pattern. Gah, the sizes are just numbers anyway.

Then when I had traced off the pattern onto interfacing, the waist yoke looked like it was going to be too small. So I made it even bigger.

I came home, and started piecing it yesterday. I was up to the zipper last night, and it was time to put it down.

For the life of me I couldn't work out how to get the zipper right, using only their rubbish instructions. So, I just did it my own way. Eventually I got the skirt finished today! Ta-dah!



Only to find that the waist is 3 inches too big. Hmm... definitely not a size 20 after all. All those pleats and mucking about, and it's going to need darts!

My friend at stitching group asked me to make the skirt out of calico first so that I could make the right size. I said "No way! This fabric cost less per metre than calico!" Hee hee. So much for calico voiles these days!


I've also chosen two other Christmas fabrics to make skirts from when I have worked out what size I need! Wish me luck!