Vintage skirt with inverted pleat

Hello all, hasn't it been a while? Hope all is well with you guys! 

Over the last couple of months, I've kept myself really quite busy -- settling into my new job, doing a bit more decorating before the days became really short, and then enjoying a wonderful road trip along the west coast of the US to celebrate the hubby's 30th. It's been a fantastic couple of months in many ways, but the one thing that did suffer during this busy time was my sewing. 

However, with the new job all going very well (yay), and the days much colder and shorter (and foggier, if today is anything to go by!), I'm back where I belong - my sewing room. 

What better way to resume sewing than a very on-trend inverted pleat skirt from a vintage pattern? 

Please excuse the dim photos - I waited and waited this afternoon for the fog to clear up, and longed for some natural light to come into the house, but had to give in to some artificial lighting in the end, as I just couldn't wait any longer before sharing the project with you ;) If the hounds tooth pattern isn't showing up too well, click on the image to enlarge and it'll look less fuzzy, I promise. 

The pattern is the Simplicity 6091 from my stash, from 1965. To think that it is an entire 50 years later that I'm picking it up and making my own version is pretty incredible.  

The fabric that I used - as you can see from the John Lewis reduced to clear label below, it's quite a mix, with 65% poly, 32% viscose and 3% spandex. The end result of this funky mix is a beautifully soft, slightly stretchy, and comfortable to wear fabric, but one that ravels like there's no tomorrow. In fact, it was ravelling so fast that I felt rushed to finish this project in 3 days; even then I was worried that I would wake up the next day and only find unravelled thread all over my sewing room, with the half-finished skirt nowhere to be seen! 

This is also why I opted to finish the seams with some rayon seam binding, which I picked up from the Garment District in NYC over a year ago. This is the first time I've used this stuff, and all the other sewers are right - it is amazing! This tutorial by Laura Mae was very informative, and set me on the right path straight away.  

In addition to the seam binding finish, I had another few firsts with this project: I made my first inverted pleat (it was pretty straight forward), and more importantly, this was the first vintage pattern that I used that did not require any real pattern alterations! Hooray! All I did was cutting 6 inches off the length, and off I went chopping up the fabric! Thank you, Simplicity! 

One more close-up photo -- topstitching above the inverted pleat

So there you have it, my first vintage make of 2015, based on a pattern from exactly 50 years ago! What this also means of course, is that I'm not doing terribly well with my Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge of sewing 3 vintage patterns this year... But hey, there's still time ;) Stay tuned and I'll be back soon, and hopefully with another vintage make!