New blue skirt

I am almost finished with the new blue skirt, a McCall's pattern. I am truly pleased with the fit. The front piece has tabs inserted at side seams and then are stitched to the front using buttons stitched through all layers.

I pinned down the tabs and then auditioned several navy blue buttons I had in collection. These are the buttons I decided to use.

And here is a close up:

I tried a new technique for stitching down the waist facing with the invisible back zipper. I recently read this blog post about facings. I thought I had bookmarked it; but when I got to that part of sewing my skirt I went to computer to pull it up to print it out. I could not find it. I did find this bookmark about facing and invisible zipper by Els at The Sewing Divas blog. I used Els technique on this one and it worked like a charm. I have now printed out Dawn's version and Els for future use. Both techniques yield a nice finished facing and no hand sewing!!!

Here is shot of my facing with invisible zipper. Not perfect. I stitched one side a little closer to zipper teeth than the other side. The zipper works and as noted above it is a nice finished facing.

I hand hemmed the skirt. Once buttons are stitched down, I will take shots of the finish garment.