Replacing a skirt lining Part 2

Continuing on last week's project to reline a winter skirt, I secured the lining at the waist and finished the bottom hem.

The finished product:

This is the back, there isn't much going on in the front. You might be wondering about the "embellishment" near the bottom hem. I will discuss that in my mistakes section at the end.

But first the last steps of finishing.

I attached the tape at the waist just to the lining on its lower side with a row of stitching, then with everything in place and the skirt inside out, I top stitched along the top edge of the tape. This secured the lining at the waist. Finally, it was time to cut the lining to length and hem.

With so much able to shift, this was not an easy process. I settled on the following method. I turned the skirt right side out, closed all zippers and buttons, and inserted it over the end of my ironing table bottom hem first, as if I were going to iron the skirt. Bits by bits, holding the skirt at the waist and tugging at both liner and shell, I marked the lining fabric 2 cm below the hem line of the skirt. I went three times around, as every time I did, I obtained different measurements.

I then looked at my markings while holding the skirt at the waist and allowing it to hang, to check that the markings were roughly where they should be, then cut along the "average" marking. After that I rolled the hem to the wrong side of the lining pressed, and stitched in place. It came out surprisingly straight and well placed.

Lastly, I blocked the raw edges that were left in the lining along the back slit with an overhang stitch before folding them under and top stitching to the button flaps of the shell. Just the one layer of fabric of the button flap, not all the way through to the back side of the skirt (so that on the right side of the skirt, this stitching does not appear).

The process didn't go without a hitch, so it's worth revisiting what I would do differently next time I line a skirt.

1) In cutting the lining to size, consider the skirt itself, not just the pencil skirt blocks. This skirt is wider than a pencil skirt and I ended up with a pure pencil skirt lining. While there is sufficient freedom of movement (or almost, see number 2), and that is often how linings are designed, I wish I had given it a couple more centimeters around the hips and down the legs.

2) The extra ease would have prevented the lining from tearing on the sides upon first wearing of the newly lined skirt. This was partly due to the lack of room, but mainly to the fact that the fabric I used frays like crazy. So another thing would have been to add more seam allowance. I "fixed" the problem by cutting clean slits on the sides where the seam ripped apart and hemming the raw edges. Now it almost looks intentional. And more importantly, there shouldn't be any more tearing.

3) Finally, the elephant in the room. Being new at this, I grossly underestimated how much the fabric could stretch. Being satin, it did not look like it was stretchy. But oh boy, on the diagonal! When I cut the back panels, I left an extra 20 cm at the bottom, thinking I would cut the extra at the end. I forgot to do that when I cut the front panel. Resultat des courses, the back panels ended up barely long enough, while the front panels came very short. To fix that issue, I cut everything at the same length, cut a long band of lining, and added it. Hence the decorative element at the bottom hem.

4) Minor mistake: I did sew the darts shut on the front panel. This is not affecting how the lining wears and feels. I was going to seam rip the darts open if that had made an issue. I think most of the ease in the lining at the waist is required in the back, not the front so that turned out to be fine.