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[phantomjunkie]

...at least what I assume is a pencil skirt, that is. I have a little under a month to prepare a costume for Bianca from the newest Pokemon anime series/video games, and she has a skirt that goes past the knee and is semi-fitted all the way down, like so:



I've already come up with an idea for making her orange shirt-vest thing--basically going to get two of the same orange shirts, cut the V neck into one, and massacre the other for the clamshell shapes at the bottom. The white undershirt won't be hard either, nor will the stockings or shoes. But that skirt is killing me right now. I thought I might try to buy something of the right length and add the buttons, but I haven't been able to find anything of that length with the right fit in my size (I wear a size 20/22 pant, or an XXL).

At this point I've resigned myself to sewing it, but I'm really iffy on the fabric. I have a fairly small Brother sewing machine and though I've used it to sew duck cloth in small portions, I'm not sure it could handle making an entire skirt out of a twill. I'm willing to give it a shot, however. I also don't know whether I should actually make the buttons on the side function as the fasten for the skirt, or if I should do a concealed zipper in the back instead.

Has anyone made a skirt like this before? Any advice?

[Ichigogami]

White skirts are always a hard find...and even at this time of year too..

Twill would be a good fabric for this and maybe use
a pattern like this
http://www.simplicity.com/p-5020-mis...portswear.aspx
Shorten it to what you need. the waist is easy since it's elastic, and then you can make Fabric covered buttons with a kit like
This
http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog/p...DID =prd51103

you can always make a little panel of fabric to make it look like the little side closure on the skirt and just handstitch or machine stitch it on then sew on the buttons...

Hope this helps.

[LadyEvanescent]

Butterick Pattern B5566 Is a pencil skirt pattern.

[Garen]

Adding on to what Ichigogami said, you can try taking the skirt in towards the bottom to get more of the shape. That skirt pattern has a vent in the back (a slit, basically, to make for easier movement), but you might need to make it a little higher depending on how much you take it in.

Based on your pictures and the sizes you gave, I would strongly suggest going with the Simplicity pattern that was suggested.

[phantomjunkie]

The character is pretty clumsy, which I'm sure is attributed to the skirt at least in part, but I definitely don't want to have to take tiny mincing steps around the con so I'll probably go ahead and add in the slit in the back.

Thank you all for the advice!