A Christmas Plaid

In the spirit of Christmas, for Dickens this year I thought it would be nice to have a little holiday plaid. So I have added this lovely green, gold, maroon to the collection. 

As it is real silk and there for expensive I only purchased enough for just a skirt, and will just match it with one of my black velvet jackets and blouses.

I like 1850's skirts because for the most part they can be ridiculously simple just one seam to close the circle, another seam for the waistband and then a long running stitch to cartridge pleat the width into the waistband. Which I do all by hand, usually while watching tv, cause I'm crazy like that ;)

The other trick I have taken to doing is instead of cutting off any excess material from the length I pleat it up a foot above the hem length so that as I wear out the bottom edge of skirt I can just let out the pleat, roll under the frayed hem and re set the pleat just a bit smaller, it can really extend the life of a skirt especially one that is worn out of doors and gets plenty of wear and tear at re-enactments.

The technique is not original to me and was most commonly used in children's clothing to extend the wear of a garment by allowing the length to grow with the child. This usually involved several rows of smaller pleats that could be let out one at a time and then conversely taken back up when the garment moved down to the next child.

I just adapted it to extend the life of my hems :)