Like pretty much every other woman doing the shopping trip at SIT in Sydney, I bought a couple of “scrap packs” of Prints Charming fabric.  We were inspired by skirts like these that were hanging up there are being worn by the lovely staff.

A couple of weeks ago I was going through my scrap packs and pulled out some of the larger pieces. A few hours and my favourite A-line skirt pattern later, I had this skirt.

I used some linen that I had in stash for the back. And here’s where I show you all the things that I could have done better but chose not to worry about.

Centre back zip. I haven’t lined the yokes up exactly. Well, they were pinned so that they lined up exactly, but without basting into place before stitching it is almost inevitable that they will end up out of alignment by a couple of millimetres.

Rather than hand-stitching the yoke facing to the zip, I just re-stitched over the previous zip insertion lines. And the overlocker thread doesn’t match (Carolyn would be horrified!). But it was finished in time to wear to church (and it would have looked much less wrinkled if I’d taken the photos before church rather than after).

Since I never tuck anything in, and because most people don’t investigate the inside of my garments, no-one else (other than everyone reading this blog post) will ever know about the “imperfections”. I sacrificed finish a little bit for speed in this case. Although the hem is lovely – it’s faced with bias binding – and I think that I pieced together the front well. It’s sometimes difficult to reconcile the competing pressures of time and finished product. Sometimes near enough is good enough.

There will be more Prints Charming pieced skirts to come!