Who knew I had curves?

As some of you know, the skirt style I want to develop this fall is the shapely pencil skirt.  Which is a funny name, as a pencil is anything but shapely. 

I did recently did a body shape quiz and found that my body type is a ruler or rectangle: straight up and down without much curve.  This always made buying store bought clothes challenging (as it is for most of us) because I had to choose between hips that fit with a too-tight waist, or a waist that fit with ear flaps of extra material on my hips.  Finding a pencil skirt that fits would be extra hard as you can't get away with a poor fit - it must fit well.  I can well imagine the frustration of going from shop to shop in the mall trying to find one that fit, only to eventually buy something that almost did, and then feeling vaguely disappointed every time I wore it.

But those days are over for me!  So here's what I came up with, from skirt inspiration to skirt completion.

Diane von Furstenberg, Zip Megs Skirt at Saks


My pattern:

And, ta-da!, I have (some) curves:

I used lightweight dark wash Italian denim with a bit of stretch that I bought months ago from fabric.com (one of my favorite fabric stores).  Instead of putting zippers on the side seams, I put two in the back: one at the waist and one at the hem that unzips to make a back slit:

I so love this shape that I plan to make two variations, one with a wide waistband and one with a peplum at the hem.  I can't wait to show them to you!