Lace for Christmas

During a city trip in Ghent, Belgium, I bought some lovely lace.

It disappeared into my stash until I saw this skirt in the december issue of Knipmode:

Because I wanted to use the scallops of the lace for the hem I decided to make a muslin in order to make sure the length was right before cutting. Hooray for the muslin! The length was just perfect.
That was about all that could be said in favor of this skirt. I like my pencil skirts to be tapered towards the knee and at first glance this picture looked okay. Ehhmm, you know, I like how the skirt is going down to the right knee. Now look again. What's going on behind that little silver evening bag? Right. Lots and lots of fabric. That line drawing should have been a clue. That's one boxy skirt!

Out with the ruler! It took two rounds of adjusting, in the end I lost over 20 cm of hem circumference.

Taking out more would mean making a kick pleat, in lace. Don't think so.

Next challenge. Hips. I'm curvy, but this skirt got some prefab hips like you would not believe! Ruler making overtime to flatten out these kingsize curves. Ha! It's finally starting to look like a pencil skirt. 

The pattern instructions are for a lined skirt. Since I don't want my darts and side seams showing through the lace I chose for underlining. My inner stash police voice told me to use what I've got, which left me with the choice between satin for a shiny look (tempting, very Christmassy!) and this fabric of unknown origin:

Right color, perfect drape. We have a winner! 

I hemmed the underlining by hand. As you can see, or better can't see, it's pretty much invisible. I really love those relaxing couture techniques.

Then I put the lace over the underlining, matching the hems at the top of the scallops.

It's a dark and rainy day so I'll put on some candles, pump up the volume of the Love Actually soundtrack and start hand basting my layers together.

Happy sewing!