Skirt finished; next stash project is begun

Hello, everyone.

As you see in the title, the gray skirt is finished.

The fabric is a batiste, so it's a little bit see-through. Thus the light blue lining that went behind it.

Most recent photo of the project:

The skirt is hemmed. 

 On the skirt order of work: the hems were added to the fashion fabric and the lining before the circle of the garment was closed. Then the lining was joined to the waist and the invisible zipper was added. After that, the bottom part of the seam was closed up and the edges of the lining around the zipper were hand-stitched down. and at the end a hook and eye were added above the zipper, to keep from having too much stress on the teensy, tiny plastic teeth of the zip.

Bias tape pinned to the armhole

 As with the skirt project, I'm trying to remember to do steps that involve closed circles before the circles are closed. (The neck edge didn't happen that way. But I think it's worked out okay.)

Back neck pleats for shaping

The traced pattern on this top (Burda magazine July, 2015, number 113/114/115) was bagging out terribly all over, and the neck was very high in front. Higher than my neck has ever been! Even the tracing was uncomfortable. So I lowered the center front by possibly 3/4", and also added tiny pleats to help control the fullness of the bust. Then, the back being all over the place, too, and the armholes looking weird, added larger pleats to the back of the neck. When sewing those pleats, I decided to treat them a little bit like "action pleats" and add matching pleats to the waistline area. The space in between the sewn pleat may be pressed into shape, but it will be able to open when I reach forward. (We'll see how that works out. This particular top is in part a wearable prototype for future garments.)

The fabric is a stash piece of linen with woven-in stripes and tiny flanges at the bottom edge of each stripe. It feel thick to the hand, but it's very easy to sew.

On another subject, since the rosary hasn't gotten any new beads for a few days and the finish may be delayed, a progress photo. The center is ready to be added. The wire is 22 gauge black-coated copper wire. I'm hoping that the wraps will be a little bit more delicate and less attention-grabbing than the 20 gauge wire wraps always are.

Pendent of the aqua rosary in progress