So I didn’t document the first day.  Sue me.

I went to draft the pattern for my skirt, and I knew that something about the topology of the waistband was not going to be right.  I had been drawing it attached to the skirt itself, i.e., all one piece, just because I was hoping to have an easy job of it.

But of course—and especially given the redesign I had to come up with—the waistband had to be a separate piece.

The aforementioned redesign:

There will be two separate sashes (more about which tomorrow) that will be sewn into the two outer buttonholes, then weave their way across the front, go around the back through the belt loops, and back to the front, to be tied through the front loop.

So each waistband will have three belt loops, six faced buttonholes, and two sash halves.

Here we go.  First, the belt loops are lined with muslin for a little sturdiness.  I’m making two huge lengths and then cutting off what I need.  Here they are all pinned:

And heavens bless my old friend Stella Lang, who loaned me her serger for this project.  Here’s the above edge all serged:

That may be hard to see, but with a fabric like monks cloth, serging is a must.  Otherwise the stuff just unravels.

That tube now gets turned inside out, pressed flat, and topstitched on the sides:

I cut out 28 rectangles of muslin—planning ahead, since each skirt will need six, and there are four Old Men in the troupe.  Marked them where the buttonhole will go, and positioned them on the waistband:

I feel like Marcel Duchamp, except that he had the luxury of randomosity.

Those get zigzagged down and up: ¹

Those get slit, and we add the belt loops:

Those facings get turned through to the back:

Tomorrow I will topstitch around the buttonholes, create the sashes, stitch those in, probably topstitch across the middle of the waistband, then add a backing layer of monks cloth.

Easy, right?  And I only have to make three more!

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¹ Actually, I should have just straight-stitched them in a rectangle around the cutline; it would have made for a tidier turn.  But on the whole I’m going with overkill with this monks cloth.