The Impromptu Wiggle Skirt

I now know how it feels to be Marilyn Monroe or a Geisha. I can barely put one front in front of the other whilst wearing this skirt and it was even less until I put a vent in.

How did this happen? It started with a brain wave whilst in the shower! Instead of making a regular pencil skirt, in my favorite fabric of the moment (yep it's the left over fabric I made this dress from) I thought it would be cool to add black triangle inserts to top and bottom side seams. Mixing it up a bit you know!

So I thought I'd be cleaver and cut corners. I used the same self drafted pattern as for this skirt (pencil style, with front and back dart's, center back zip) but instead of chopping up the pattern to create separate triangle pieces. I sewed the skirt, eyeballing where I'd like the triangles to go. Cut them out of the black fabric and traced round them directly onto the skirt. I then cut away the skirt fabric and stitched the triangles in place. Luckily I'd only done the hem triangles this way.

What went wrong was that I'd included seam allowance on the triangles, which run around the outside of the triangle as normal but the seam allowance on the skirt fabric need to run around the inside of the triangle meaning I should have been cutting out a smaller triangle on the skirt. I sewed the triangles into the skirt and because of this mistake I accidentally made the skirt narrower.
Have a look at this diagram this might be able to explain it better .... or if I'd cut out the pieces on the pattern I wouldn't have had this problem :/

 At first I thought I'd ruined the skirt. There were huge bulges right above where the triangles finished and for a while I couldn't work out why. I had to skim a load of fabric off to make a smooth side seam, bringing the skirt in even more which meant I need to add a vent to the back of the skirt.

Eventually it dawned on where I'd gone wrong and I was able to insert the waist triangles with-out a hitch. I'm definitely creating pattern pieces next time...

I really likey this skirt but it's not a skirt to go for a stroll round the park in, or to walk up steps. I can barely hike it up it's that fitted and thank god the fabric's got a bit of stretch otherwise I don't know how I'd move. This is most defiantly a skirt to sit down in, shame really as I love how it turned out, maybe I should just make another...