A couture guipure lace skirt

Find the seam...

This took an awful lot of hand sewing!

First there was the basting of the lace to the underlined and hemmed skirt pieces (as seen in the last post).

Then I sewed the darts and completed the side seams (by machine).

Then I took a deep breath and cut into the lace to separate the motifs so I could overlap them over the curves at the top of the skirt. I was worried that because the lace has such a regular pattern, the places it overlapped would be really obvious. This turned out not to be a problem at all.

Then I hand felled the edges of the cut lace, tacking it through all layers.

Tiny snaps

Back zip

Then I sewed the CB seam and hand-inserted the zipper (it would have been pretty hard to do it by machine). Then I cut the lace motifs to overlap the zip opening and also to mold around the vent at the CB hem.

I did some more hand tacking of the lace around the zipper.

I added tiny snaps so the bits of lace that overlap at CB would appear attached to the base fabric when the skirt was worn.

Grosgrain

Lining attached at CB - all by hand

Let's see... Then I sewed the lining and basted it to the skirt, wrong sides together, at the waist edge.

I had some dark navy grosgrain in stash. It was originally meant for hat bands. It is the perfect width and colour for a ribbon facing of my skirt. I attached it by machine and checked the fit. The waist was a bit loose but I was able to ease it into the grosgrain.

The lining is attached at the zipper, down the CB seam, and at the sides of the vent.

I added a large hook and eye which are attached to the grosgrain at the CB waist.

The pattern is the one illustrated at right from the February, 2009 edition of Burdastyle.

Here are a couple more shots of the completed skirt. It's pretty comfortable!