'Just a work skirt' (not)...

So my darling daughter asks if I could whip her up a new skirt for work. Her request was for a skirt, just above knee length, in black. Nothing fancy – ‘it’s just for work’ she informs me. Naturally I jump at the chance - a valid excuse to sew!!!

Within 5 minutes I am holed up in my sewing room rummaging through the pattern stash. Finally found a pattern I had been meaning to try myself. Simplicity 2451 – 2 skirts in 2 lengths. Great excuse now to give it a go.

Within the hour I had flown down to the local fabric store to grab the required fabric and bits and pieces needed. Already I am picturing my (OK her) skirt completed, with button detail and a trendy exposed zipper at the back.

First thing was to lengthen the skirt pattern and for this I added on an extra 12cm throughout the bottom section of the skirt. My daughter is 188cm tall so has never really been able to pop into a shop and pick up a massed produced skirt at a suitable length. So this skirt will be at the exact length she wants/needs.

Other than that nothing exciting to report about this pattern that many, many others haven’t written about on PR. But I will just add that it was a breeze to sew and did indeed just fall into place. What a pity it was relegated to the ‘just for work’ label before it was even created.

So details. First I added an extra ribbon layer to the pocket edge. This was to provide extra support ‘at work’ for when pens, paperclips, keys etc are always stored in the pocket. The edge won’t stretch out of shape now.

Jazzed up the waistband area with 2 tabs on the front with pretty buttons, and also on the back waistband, above the zipper. Deliberately didn’t take the zipper right up to the top of the waistband, but choose buttons for extra strength for ‘at work’.

Sewed the front pleats down 4cm and 3cm respectively to give a little more shape to the front tummy area. They did tend to poke out a bit.

Added an exposed zipper to the back instead of my favourite invisible zipper as I felt it had a younger, more trendy look for her age.

Verdict: A winner!!! Yah, and it is ‘just a work’ skirt, so I won’t get any more excited over it. Just a work skirt, indeed.

And just for a laugh, I started taking these photo's outside in the beautiful Queensland outdoors - but then came along the wind just as I had it all set up ready to go.

Daughter will return home tomorrow and hopefully I can grab a photo of her in the skirt on the way to work...
Some people asked about the exposed zipper I used, here is a link to the tutorial that I followed