BWOF 04-2008-108 Pleat Front Skirt

For my Mini-Wardrobe for Paris I needed at least one skirt, and I had the perfect navy fabric for it. Last year Cidell made a cutie cute pleat front shirtdress out of some fabulous cotton eyelet and had some left over. After making her think about it for several months--I am way too selfish ever to have given up such lovely fabric--I finally agreed (gleefully) to take the leftovers. It was one of my inspiration fabrics for creating a navy and red wardrobe.

The #108 skirt was one of my top picks from the April edition of BWOF, and it seemed a great vehicle for the fabric. I don't know that I picked the platonic ideal project for this fabric, because the slight A-line of the pattern is exaggerated by the stiff eyelet, but I don't think it was a gross mistake either.

There are more details in the pattern review, but I wanted to show a method for getting a nice bias binding waistband opening above the zip (as always, click on the photo for a larger, clearer pic).



My method:
1. Cut 2 1/2 inch wide bias strips.
2. Fold and iron the bias strips in half (the long way).
3. Match up the raw edges with the raw edge at the top of the skirt. The key step is to wrap the waistband around the zip at the top for about an inch or so.
4. Sew the bias tape to the waistband with a 1/2" seam allowance (or slightly smaller), catching the inner wrap and outer layer of the waistband as one.
5. When you turn the waistband up, it will encase the raw edge and create a nice flat line above the zip.
6. Turn the folded edge of the bias tape to the inside and either pin in place over the seam allowance and stitch in the ditch on the outside, or handsew it down to the seam allowance. You'll find if you want to do the first method it's very important to make sure you didn't take too large of a seam allowance, because then there's not enough bias tape left to fold all the way over past the seam line.
7. Sew in a hook and eye to hold the waistband closed.

BWOF wanted you to sew the zip all the way to the top of the waistband; I can never get an invisible to zip up past that much bulk, no matter how much I trim the seam allowances.