Sewing for Alex

When my daughter was young I rarely made clothing for her.  She couldn't stand still and if I should poke here with a pin?  Forget it.  She was pretty awful.  Now, she considers clothing made by me worth standing still.   Of course she's older now and she buys her own clothing and while she is a small size and can readily find clothing in rtw, she hates cheap clothing.  She understands  the difference between cheap and well made.  Because she's a size 2 or 4 there are lots of great offerings at places like Nordstrom Rack and Neiman's outlet store both available to her in Texas.  She has an easy time finding dresses, but skirts, because she has a waist that is almost 2 sizes smaller than her hips are a harder find.  She told me that she wanted me to make her a skirt for her Chanukah present and since she was coming in to visit in November I had a muslin waiting for her.  Originally she chose a Burda Style with a hem ruffle and cb pleats in it, but  the fabric she chose from my stash wasn't  compatible.  I had a piece of black and gray coated cotton animal print that she fell in love with so we went with a simple pencil skirt. I had a 7" gray Riri zipper in my zipper drawer and  made an exposed cb zipper to jazz up the skirt a bit.  


Instead of just taking in the waist at the side seams, I added darts front and back for a more graceful transition from hip to waist.  Her fullness at the hip falls at her upper thigh, so her hip curve didn't match the pattern's.  I took in the upper hip and added a bit to her thigh area.  

  It's pretty easy to place the whole zipper on the surface of the garment  in a seam,  but I didn't want the zipper tape exposed.  I looked everywhere for a good method and if I wanted to just put it in anywhere on the skirt that was pretty easy, but how to do it in a seam, that I had a hard time finding.  I made samples and I faced the seam so that I had finished edges around the zipper teeth and a clean transition to the remainder of the seam.  

Here's a closeup of the zipper.

She is very happy with the results and she proudly tells all her friends that her Mom made it.