Deer & Doe Chardon Skirt in Black Cotton Sateen

Oh dear, once again I have made something black and it's really difficult to photograph.  I promise I don't have any other black fabric soon to be sewn up and blogged!

Here is an overexposed photo so you can actually see the skirt:

This is the Chardon Skirt by Deer & Doe.  I was surprised to find that Deer & Doe send their patterns from France to anywhere, postage free.  How fab is that?!*******Edited to add: I was wrong!  Deer & Doe offer extremely reasonable international postal charges, but it's PAPERCUT patterns who ship anywhere in the world FOC.  So sorry about that mistake.  I suddenly realised my error when a Papercut pattern arrived in the post this morning and jogged my memory!*******

The patterns themselves have lovely packaging, which always helps (!), and the pattern is printed on paper rather than tissue paper.

I seem to be choosing only quick makes recently as, along with the Anna Dress, this was crazy quick to make.  I mean, seriously fast.  It's two rectangles with pleats, and a facing.  Oh, and ties or belt loops.  And a zip.  I made option B (the longer version) but with the ties from option A instead of the belt loops.

My hem is level even though it looks terribly wonky.

I made the size 40, which is for a 28.5" waist (my exact measurement), thinking if it was too big I would be able to pull it in a bit with the tie.  It's definitely too big, even with 2cm taken out. Next time I would make the next size down.  I'm not sure if the fact that my cotton sateen (from Truro Fabrics) has a little give has anything to do with this; it's not stretch sateen though.

I like the way the pattern says to topstitch along the sides of the pleats to keep them in place.  But I was surprised to find there was no mention of understitching the facing at the waistline.  Without topstitching, the facing wants to pop out of the top of the skirt.  A beginner wouldn't know to do this, so it would be helpful to have it in the instructions.  Unless I've been a total donkey and missed it!

I like this skirt a lot and may make another.  But good grief, I have so much stuff I want to make.

Right now I'm working on a Victory Patterns Lola Dress in bright blue knit.  I sometimes find knits tricky...let's see what happens!