A-Line Skirt

After a short, post-wedding hiatus from creative projects, I'm back to more sewing.  I watched one episode of this show called The Great British Sewing Bee, and that was enough inspiration for me!

Last year, I made a couple skirts just because I thought they'd be easy.  They're wearable but far from perfect, so I thought I'd give the A-line skirt another go.  I've had an olive green fabric I've been meaning to use for a while and a pattern for various skirts I've been meaning to use for a while, so I just put them together.

I have to say, even after having sewn a few articles of clothing now, this pattern still confused me.  Frankly, I couldn't figure out how to attach the waistband correctly, so I just made something up, which didn't turn out very well.  Again, the skirt's wearable, but I'm not happy with it.

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out whether to attach the bottom of the waistband first or finish the top first.  I did the bottom first, but when I got to the top, I couldn't figure out a clean way to finish it.

Perhaps I attached the waistband to the wrong side of the fabric first.  If I finished the top at the end but had it on the opposite side, I couldn't stitched in the ditch on the right side of the fabric, and it would've been fine if the stitches weren't perfect on the inside.

Inserting the zipper was a whole 'nother ordeal.  I didn't have a dark-colored invisible zipper, so I just used a black 7" zipper I had around.  You can definitely see it, and I sewed close to the zip to try to conceal it, but that didn't really work.  I'm not sure what to do with the excess top part of the zip to tack it down either.  **sigh**   I think I might try finishing the hem with a fun bias tape so that I don't take this silly skirt so seriously.

I've been contemplating sewing classes because I feel like I'm doing things all wrong.  I'm pretty sure I'd get better if I just learn some proper techniques.  I'm just sooooo discouraged right now.  I can't even bring myself to take any more photos of this skirt.  If I keep sewing, will I eventually get better, or will I just waste inordinate amounts of time and fabric?