I fell in love with this pattern a few years ago, and purchased it around that time. It's McCalls 6993, a reproduction skirt pattern from 1933. It took me a while to get started on this pattern because I knew that I wanted a pinstripe fabric, but I couldn't find any that I liked. The only one I saw was a brown and white fabric with these weird textured bits in the brown part. Eventually I saw this fabric in the clearance aisle, and decided that this was probably the best deal that I would going to get on the fabric, and the textured bits probably wouldn't be visible from a distance anyway.
I made a few changes to this skirt.
1) I was surprised when I looked at the pattern pieces and realized that the skirt yoke wasn't cut on the bias. Honestly, how are you supposed to notice that cool detailing if you don't show it off. So I cut the skirt yoke fronts on the same angle that the yoke is on (not quite the true bias, but it emphasizes the angle of the yoke). I attached the interfacing directly to the fashion fabric, so hopefully that will help to stabilize it and avoid too much stretching at the waist. After fighting with the back yoke since it's not on an angle, I decided to just rotate it 90 degrees to create some interesting contrast with the skirt.
2) I knew from the start that I wanted to add piping to this skirt, again to enhance the detailing on the skirt. Since the fabric is brown with white pinstripes a white piping seemed ideal...unfortunately I did not think about this when I purchased the fabric. Fast forward a few months to much of the world under orders to stay home and I don't have the piping that I want to add to my skirt. And I want to add the piping to the seams connecting the yoke, which means that I was only able to sew the front pleats and back darts before being stymied by a lack of materials.
3) I decided to line the full skirt. My fabric is heavy, which means that I'm probably only going to wear it when it's cold out, and will most likely be wearing tights as well. If I add a lining to the skirt, then I can skip wearing a slip to keep the skirt from sticking to my tights. This also worked out because I got a chance to see how the pattern comes together without worrying about the piping. Actually, it's pretty great. The seam ends are well marked, and as long as you follow those you're all set. My top-stitching even looks nice, which is very encouraging. Unfortunately I was also lacking an appropriate zipper in my stash...so I'm going to need to wait until I can get one of those before I can get much further on this project.
Changes I would consider going forward
1) The back of the yoke is shorter than the front of the yoke. If I had the skills I'd be tempted to redraft the back yoke to the same height as the front yoke, but I'm afraid that I'll mess up the darts if I try to do that. It just really frustrates me because one of my biggest pet peeves in Ready to Wear is that detailing usually comes to an awkward halt at the side seams. I want my piping to go all the way around, and even though I don't have it yet, I'm already trying to figure out how to make it do that when I get to the side seams. Maybe it will just travel up the sides like racing stripes?
2) A full matching lining was a little absurd for this project - although it was informative and ultimately worth my time. I'd be interested in somehow making a lining that fits the original skirt, but also provides a full lining without sewing in the pleats and doing all the top-stitching.
3) I'm not sure how best to add pockets to this one. I generally prefer to add in seam pockets, but I'm afraid that they'll mess up the lines too much. Once I finally get this one assembled I'll see how spacious or tight the hips are. Patch pockets would also detract from the shape of the skirt.
4) The pleats in the front are awesome, so why not carry the design around to the back? It would also make sure that there is a lot of room for movement of the legs within the skirt.