More....

More bustles and more shirring elastic.... More trapese-line top (from my book) variations. This time, a 2-metre piece of voile from Clear It ($5 per metre) was folded top and bottom to make a dress length diamond shape...and then the shirring elastic was put into action! So yes... more poncing about and more swishing of bustly bits. (Anyone would think that bustles didn't go out of fashion over 100 years ago).
Oh, and here's a large zipper rose (instructions are also in Le Book).
EDITED TO ADD: I just found a weekend where I can schedule a Pattern-Free Top Workshop - if you need a bit of help to get started with this method... or just want a fun sewing day. Details here.

Back to the beginning....and then an epilogue. (You already know the middle bit)

Long before the shirred top and long before the trapese line top in my book, I made the bustle skirt, based on a square of fabric. I then started thinking about a way to make one based on a quarter-circle skirt.
Somewhere during the process of playing with calico, I thought, "....Ooh, I could make top this way...". So was the beginning of the trapese line top... and a hiatus in the development of the bustle-skirt idea. It was also the start of the patternfree skirt section in the book.


I only got back to the original idea this week.... and it seems to work!
It's a variation on the panel skirt in my book (only I thought of it before I thought of the panel skirts...). The hemline of this skirt finishes in a point - basically, it hasn't been cut in a curve at the hemline (except a bit of last minute trimming before hemming, just so I don't trip and break my neck on the stairs). It has been shirred randomly across the back - with the shirring in a kind of wildly random cross-hatch on the bottom half. There was a bit of slam-pressing, too. The fabric was a printed linen remnant that I bought for $10 at the Shirt & Skirt Market a few years ago. It was a light "faded denim" colour with red and navy flowers. I dyed it indigo.
And I've been swanning about in it like bustle skirts are the height of fashion. (Yes, I watch too many costume dramas).