log lady gather skirt

I was obsessed with Twin Peaks when I was in high school.  It was so quirky and cool and the atmosphere and music were like characters of their own.  In addition to having a massive crush on Agent Cooper, I really like the Log Lady character.  You knew that when she showed up with her log, saying things like "the owls are not what they seem" that you were either getting a glimpse as to what was to come or you were going to be totally frustrated and confused by the episode's end. 

When I found this fabric over the summer it made me think of the Log Lady and her strange ways and I also thought it was the perfect fabric for a quick fall skirt. 

This fabric was too fun to make anything too serious so I decided to make another gather skirt.  I'm pretty happy with the way it came out - it's very whimsical :-)  I felt that my first gather skirt was way too bulky and had way too much fabric in the waist.  For this version I found a tutorial for a similar skirt that suggested measuring your hips and multiplying by 2.1 to get the width of the skirt panels.  This calculation yielded a measurement that was pretty similar to my first version where I just winged it so I still ended up chopping off about 8" from the waist.  I think the bulkiness problem lies in the fact that I have a very small waist compared to my more shapely hips.  If I make another version (who am I kidding?  I am totally making a 3rd version with a fun fabric in spring!) I am going to take my waist measurement and multiply by 2.1 and see how that works out.  This time I inserted the zipper before putting in the waistband which made the finishing a little neater.

I'm really kind of in love with this skirt and hope that it stays fall-like for a good long while so I can wear it a lot.  

(Note: I just figured out how to do some basic photo editing in iPhoto!  Hurrah!  I am very excited because my apartment has terrible light and I take terrible pictures of myself so I always feel like my pictures are pretty horrific.  Hopefully the editing will make a little bit of a difference!)