I'm another of those "only wear skirts" types. Because of my body type, I look horrible in trousers, having a 911" difference between waist and hips. As I carry most my weight around the hips and lower stomach, I don't really look good in a-line skirts, though I find circle skirts and other full skirts look quite good on me. I hate shopping for skirts, though, because everything the stores carry is usually pencil skirts, which makes me look pregnant with a small elephant, or a-lines, which I can wear, but they do tend to be a little too closely fitted, and I have to wear them on my hips not to look silly, which I'm not comfortable with. Granted, I have huge hips, 47" at last time of measuring, but a lot of the skirts I find in stores aren't made with feminine curves at all. A lot of them just go straight down, and the only person in my circle of friends who look good in those is a skinny Asian male. My ideal type of "nice" outfit is a full skirt gathered into a non-elastic waistband so I can wear a corset over it for more waist definition, and a nice top with bell sleeves or something.

Having a fairly distinct hourglass shape (44"-38"-47"), any clothing shopping is hopeless, really. Especially dresses, because if they fit my waist, I can't get them over my hips, and if they fit my hips, my waist is covered in tons of fabric, which makes me a bit sad, because I like my body shape. I do want to lose some weight, but mainly for medical reasons. Besides, even if I do lose weight, I still won't find clothing to fit my hip-waist ratio. The fact that I'm overweight has only part of the blame for my hip size.

So sewing is pretty much the only way for me to get pretty clothes. Thankfully, I got a new sewing machine for Christmas, after having been a year without, and a bolt of nice fabric, so I intend to try some patterns I have gathered.

For the chafing issue, I usually wear cotton or muslin bloomers. Sometimes in crazy patterns and colours, even, as I have a pretty much all black wardrobe (I suppose you could call me a goth, though I hate thinking of myself as one. The dress-style fits, though.), and sometimes, I get sick of monochrome. Since people usually doesn't see my undergarments, I've been known to wear bright purple bloomers with electric green cat paw prints on them under a sombre black Victorian-style skirt. Somehow, it brightens the everyday dullness.

You know, until I saw this, it'd never even occurred to me to make eyelets by hand. Considering how much fabric I've ruined while setting eyelets, you might just have saved me a lot of frustration and swearing. So thank you very much!

And I love the dress, too. It looks great!