Travel Wardrobe Part 1. South Island, New Zealand. Burda Style 10-2011-129 skirt

The other task that interrupted the blogging was a review of my travel clothes for a family holiday. For this type of holiday, the clothing needs to be quick drying, hardy, provide for outdoor activity in all weathers, and take up very little space. I find packing requires considerable thought. Unfortunately, the skirt and 2 pairs of trousers I made for a 3 week trip in 2010 have mysteriously shrunk in certain regions since I stopped the unsustainable 10 hours per week cycling I was doing at the time ( this unusual activity was in preparation for a cycling trip), so I had a very good excuse for some new travel clothes.
Here is the result of hours of vacillating considered selection for a 10 day trip to the South Island of New Zealand, where we spent most of our time walking in National Parks.

Two t-shirts, one pair of shorts/trousers,one skirt and the leggings are new additions. The shirt dress, lace two layer t shirt and raincoat have been displayed previously on the blog. The polar fleece jacket and the sun hat are old purchases (hmm, I think the polar fleece jacket is older than DD the second), and the wardrobe also inluded purchased tights, 3 pairs socks and smalls, and a hand knitted woollen hat. It fit in my day pack carry-on if I wore the jacket and raincoat, which is not really possible when leaving from 38 degrees C and 90% humidity, but is a nice idea in theory.
I forgot my woollen gloves, but fortunately it is very easy to buy warm gloves in New Zealand.
Skirt Burda Style 10-2011-129

Skirts being more forgiving than trousers, I was just considering the wearability of my slightly too snug dark brown A-line woven quick dry nylon skirt when Mary Nanna posted a fabulous A-line skirt in corduroy, saving me from searching through my Burdas for a suitable skirt pattern (procrastination blog reading is an important part of any sewing rush job). Aside from the other charms of this skirt, the pockets struck me as particularly useful for a travel/walking garment. I used woven nylon wicking fabric from the Rainshed, purchased 2010,which is a fabric used by outdoorsy shops for their travel clothes, found after much real life and on-line hunting, and not in the colours I particularly wanted. After seeing Mary Nanna's silk duponi version I am thinking a silk version would possibly have been more glamorous and equally practical, as the fabric cannot be tumble dried, although it hardly needs it, as the skirt washed by hand, wrung in a towel, dries fully between 10pm and 6am when hung up over the sink.

Unfortunately for me, the particularly charming buttons I placed on the pockets, per Burda, provided unecessary visual width at the hips. Having unfilled scraggy buttonholes looks better, I assure you.

Instead of lining the skirt, I made a voile petticoat, with elastic waist and button loop waist closure, using the skirt pattern pieces. It is easy to dry two layers if you can separate them. I used a blind stitch to make a scallop hem on the petticoat.

My concession to the walking aspect of this skirt was to add an invisible zip to the bottom of the sideseam.
I took this idea from a RTW outdoorsy skirt, and it worked very nicely, allowing me to leave the skirt as a fully covering garment when worn in tourist places,

Garden, Otago Peninsula
and to scramble up rocks (worn with leggings underneath) in less groomed locations.

Greenstone track, Fjordland National Park, and there is a skirt under the several outer layers.
My other concessions to the drying requirements for travel were to use hemp for the waistband lining (resists mould and bacteria) and to finish the hems with the overlocker and a single rather than double turn.

Elephant rocks near Duntroon