Getting around to finishing craft projects...

I've been planning it since last October, I actually started sewing it last November, and I finished it this February: my red velvet skirtain. I'm calling it a skirtain because the fabric is an offcut from the bottom of a cotton velvet curtain from Ikea.
I put the zip in by hand because I haven't (yet) mastered the zipper foot on my machine, then had to unpick the whole of that seam because the two edges of the waistband didn't quite meet. When I say 'didn't quite meet' I mean one side was about two inches above the other. Not quite sure how that happened...maybe because I've worked on it in many little chunks of time? I did contemplate bodging it by folding one side of the waistband down...but then had a word with myself, unpicked it and sewed it up properly. It has a press stud because that's easier than a buttonhole!
I've worn it and I love it...and here it is!

Next on my to-make list...

From the book Dressmaking: the complete step-by-step guide, by Alison Smith (Dorling Kindersley, £25), I'll be making two skirts from two pieces of fabric I've had for too long. Click here to buy it for £8.99 from the Book People, saving £16.01.
The book has patterns you can scale up on dressmaker's paper, or you can do what I did, and download the patterns from the DK website. Print them out, and stick them together. Cleverly, the pieces are coded so you know what to stick where.
The first pattern, a classic fitted skirt, is for a beautiful silky green sari-style fabric bought from an offcuts bin in Berwick Street.
And the second, a classic A-line skirt, is for a piece of red velvet cut from the bottom of a curtain from Ikea - waste not, want not!
The curtain is made from cotton velvet and intended to be hung at a window, but ours is hanging across the doorway of our open-plan(ish) kitchen and living room. As it's hanging from a lower-level pole, there was a very big hem to be taken up. And a piece of scarlet velvet big enough to make me a skirt simply cannot be wasted...
I'll let you know how I get on!

Sewing a simple skirt

This pattern is described as the simplest-ever skirt, in the book it appears in: Sewing Made Simple by Tessa Evelegh.
I wouldn't quite go that far; I've sewn some skirts that were simpler: one front piece, one back piece, sew the seams, hem in a piece of elastic at the top... However, it does look far more complicated than it is. It's a bias-cut drawstring-waist skirt. I love the waistband, which is a wide ribbon threaded through with narrower ribbon. In sewing this, I had a little mishap. I pinned the double layer of ribbon around the waist of the skirt, then I machined it... and found that it wasn't quite long enough, although it had been when pinned on. So my 'learning from experience' tip for this pattern is not to cut the end of the ribbon until you've sewn it on. Once you pull the ribbon drawstring though, the gap is closed between the two ends of the waistband piece of ribbon, so my error is not noticeable.