My shirt did not take up quite as much fabric as I thought so I have just over two yards of the lace left, which is the perfect amount for a longer skirt.

I'm going to make it in my absolute favorite (and deeply impractical) tea-length. I always think there is something so very lovely and feminine about a long lace skirt.

I'm at that fiddly boring and complicated stage where its just a case of moving and re-pinning, pinching out darts and basting, its taken a while but I am almost there.......

and I've decided to keep it fairly neutral with a cream muslin base and a silk charmeuse underlining so I can mix and match it with other garments, and think I will use a simple petersham ribbon for the waistband.

I'll post all the details from start to finish next week!

Pants...

You might have seen on Instagram that I recently spent the day with Kenneth King, having some pants fitted and a sloper made.

I very diligently made four pants muslins, all Marfy over a few weeks beforehand for practice but frustratingly the night before I met with him, when I tried them all on, only one still fit...

I gave up coffee recently as I finally had to admit very begrudgingly that endless espresso all day long was making me feel just awful, but now I seem to have replaced one bad habit with another as I'm eating all day long instead..and drinking gallons of black English tea!

So, until this weather warms and the awful cravings pass, pants will have to wait until I go back to that size 44....

I have the one pair though that Kenneth fitted in a 46 with straight legs and I'm going to make some muslins of those to get some leg options as well as make a full pair with some cheaper fabric as a test run, but I won't be making any decent ones for a month or two as it seems pointless to make them in two sizes.

I've also had my eye on a slightly unusual pair of pants on the Net-a-Porter site and will be making a test muslin for those as well, as I am still not quite sure how they did what they did....

and Kenneth has invited me to stop by at any time for final fittings of the muslin drafts when I make them so he can fine tune them all, which I will definitely be doing before cutting into any good stash fabric!

I'll also be watching the pant's DVD he gave me and the Craftsy David Page Coffin download which I just bought, which comes highly recommended before I go much further..

and I think I will get more into the alterations Kenneth made to the pattern when I make the muslins, as I need to work through what was changed and why it was to understand it all a little more first...

Slopers

and luckily?! the few pounds I have gained are around my waist and hips, so Kenneth made my upper body sloper while I was there, which I really really wanted!

He took twenty or so measurements, and then while having a full conversation with me drew this up in less than thirty minutes and it fits like a glove - I was so incredibly impressed!

I loved that not only did he mark the paper patterns for dresses/blouses but also gave me a second option with more ease and a different dart placement for jackets and coats (top picture/blue/red)

I thought I could use this now, so I picked up this Vogue pattern yesterday in the largest size they had, so I can get used to grading using my sloper.

Vogue normally do not fit me well, so I know there will be some work involved to keep these really nice design lines .....and I admit making a jacket feels more appropriate for this weather at least and the thought of nice stretchy pants - so tempting!!!