Life with the Lunds: Project Craft: January

One of my New Years Resolutions was to do something crafty at least once per month. Hopefully I will do it more, but this way I am committed to at least 12 new fun projects! For January, I finally decided to break out some fabric I bought last summer (hence it's more of a summery skirt...but I think it will work with grey tights for winter!) So with this skirt as inspiration:

And with help from some tutorials:

http://grandrevivaldesign.typepad.com/grand_revival_design/2011/10/pleated-wrap-skirt-tutorial.html

http://elleapparel.blogspot.com/2010/08/pinwheel-skirt.html

http://elleapparel.blogspot.com/2010/09/socialite-skirt.html

Oh yah, and 21 years of sewing lessons from this lovely woman:

Plus my own awesome math skills and brilliant ideas (this is mostly where things went wrong... :D)

I made my own box-pleat skirt!

Lessons Learned: First of all, I didn't prewash the fabric, and I'm pretty sure I'll be kicking myself about this sometime soon! My zipper is entirely messed up, but by the time I got to that part, I was ready to be finished! Next time, watch a zipper tutorial PLEASE! And finally, I messed up the waistband big time. All the tutorials showed me how to do a tapered waistband--but did I listen? No... I figured I could taper it in the back. But hello, you aren't curvy in the back! You are curvy on your sides. So next time, I am going to make a front and back waistband so it can be tapered in on my sides. But overall, I measured twice so I only had to cut once (measuring is generally a major flaw of mine) and I even ironed my seam allowances!