Button Through skirt

Grrr, my camera is still ill so please excuse the crappy photos.

This is a second item for my SWAP, and is based on Vogue 9959 which is my TNT straight but not too fitted, skirt pattern.  I suspect the pattern is long out of print though. 
The fabric is a small scrap of twill (and it was small) left from a dress my mum made for herself.  Its a mid weight fabric and it was touch and go whether I would get a skirt out of the piece.  I had to piece the pockets and waistband and the scraps left at the end were so small I could hold them in one closed fist. 
The original pattern has two darts each side in the back and one dart each side at the front and is supposed to have a back zipper.  Its also a super long skirt.  I've used it so often I've had to retrace it as it was falling apart.  :)  When I retraced it, I traced it full length (which is nearly floor length on me).  Then I drew in two inch hem to make it ankle length.  Then, every two inches above that hemline I drew another line, squared across, and marked with the finished skirt length.  Now each time I get the pattern out, I just fold the pattern onto the relevant hem length line plus desired hem depth, and pin it up out of the way, so I have the exact length I need.  Though the fabric piece I had here was so small that I had to fold it higher than the shortest hem line of 24".  This skirt is about 22 inches long from waist, a length entirely dictated by the depth of the scrap I was working with.

I cut the back on the fold, then for the fronts I followed the instructions in Claire Schaeffer's fabulous book, High Fashion Sewing Secrets, to add my button placket to the fronts to make it button through.  I just pinned the pattern on the fabric then used tailors chalk to mark my button stand line and placket lines.  I used a quilters squared ruler to mark the distances evenly from the center front line.  My button stand is three quarters of an inch, a little more than needed for my one inch buttons, and my placket is three inches wide.  Using a quilting ruler to square across/measure distances worked really well actually and I'd do that again for other things.

It looked a bit plain on the back and I fancied some jeans style pockets.  However, I didn't have enough depth in the bits of fabric left over to get whole pockets out, but I did have a lot of length as I had a long but narrow strip left.  I cut my waistband first, in two pieces seamed in the centre, then the bits left over I made into pieced pockets.  I'm actually really proud of my pieced pockets.  To make them I took the strip of fabric and cut it in half.  Then I laid the two strips above each other but butted up to each other.  I had some satin ribbon the exact colour of my buttons, and half an inch wide.  I centered the ribbon over the join in the fabric and stuck it in place with Steam A Seam. Then I turned it over and stuck quarter inch twill tape in black to the back of the join to stabilise it (this is inside the pocket so doesn't show).  Then I blanket stitched (on the machine... I have a narrow blanket stitch on the quilting programme that looks lovely) the edges of the ribbon to anchor it permanently. Finally, to keep it all completely together and make it all totally stable, I used one of the embroidery stitches on the machine to sew down the middle of the ribbon which looks pretty and stabilised it all.  Finally I took my pocket pattern piece (from my Jalie Jeans) and cut out two pockets, then prepared and applied those as normal.  And this is the end result.  I thought they were pretty cool and a good use of the scraps.

The construction of the skirt was pretty straightforward really.  Darts, plackets, part of hem at front,  (due to the placket needing to be turned inside first), side seams, back pockets (done at this stage due to need to try on for placement), waistband, button holes, buttons, hand sew rest of hem, hand sew inner waistband. The skirt hits me just above the knee which is quite a cute length for boots or for summer sandals, depending on season.  And I was pleased to note that the buttons don't gape, pull or otherwise misbehave... which I had been a bit concerned about.  I really like this little skirt.  I've wanted to make a button through for a while and I think this came out cute.  AND, unusually, I found the exact number of the exact colour of button, in the exact size I wanted, in the stash tin.  How often does that happen?