High Waisted Skirt - in progress

I'm in the midst of auditioning two different Burda Magazine patterns for my next project, a high-waisted black wool crepe skirt.  One of them is in the current February, 2010 edition (skirt 124) and the other is from a year ago - the same edition (January, 2009) that my orange plaid jacket came from - skirt 112. So far I'm liking the older pattern better.

Before I go on, a word about Burda.  I am really irritated that they are seriously mucking up their on-line magazine archive.  At least it still exists in accessible form in English, although who knows for how long.  The German version has gone all to H**L as a result of being "updated" or "improved".  I don't know how they would explain it, since they didn't respond to my e-mail asking about it and pointing out some of the problems with their new site.  For a while, they had two images for most patterns - the artsy posed version from the magazine, and a plain, mannequin shot from straight on so you could actually see the detail in the garment.  They also consistently had technical drawings for all sewn garments.  About a year ago they cut out the mannequin shots and now I notice that the February, 2010 pages omit any link to the technical drawings.  And it's no longer up to date.  The January, 2010 edition is lost in some sort of internet limbo.  Honestly! 

Rant over.

Anyhow, quite a few years ago I had a high waisted skirt pattern that I made over and over.  It was from long-defunct Vogue 2518, a "career wardrobe" pattern that I believe was a cheaper knock off of a then-current designer pattern (Anne Klein I think). 

As you can see from the line drawing, the straight skirt has a high waist coupled with 2 front pleats that the side pockets tuck into.  Back when I was using this 1990 pattern I was a bit trimmer than I am now and sadly, it would no longer fit.  But now that higher waists have been seen often enough that they no longer look odd, I am really hankering after a new version to replace my old TNT pattern. 

With that very long-winded intro, here's my muslin version of the waistband of 2009-01-112:

I left it open at the front for ease of use while fitting.  I traced a 38 which is my waist size, but had to let it out at the lower edge, and take it in at the upper edge (I guess I have a really small ribcage). 

I'm going to morph this waist onto the skirt pattern I developed using PatternMaster Boutique (PMB).  I've already made this pattern in at least 4 different versions and it will lend itself to this waistband very well, since the PMB skirt has princess seams.  Here's a pic of one version of the pattern.

This skirt had only side front and side back seams - the princess seaming and a deep side dart took care of my low curves. 

Here it is in action - the fit is the best I have ever achieved (which is why I've used this base over and over and over).

This particular version was long but for my current project I'm shortening to knee length and pegging the hem slightly. 


So here's my question for all you gurus out there.  Since the waistband on my skirt-in-progress is high, should I bone it to keep the high waist from collapsing?  I have some spiral steel boning (4" length) which I bought for a song at Dressew when last in Vancouver.  The seams in the waistband are longer than 4" but I thought perhaps I could make channels that end 4" down from the top of the waistband.  I would use an inner layer made of something substantial so the channels won't be seen on the outside.  What do you think of that idea?  If I do it, should I place the boning at the side-front and side-back seams or at the actual side seams?  The Sewing Lawyer is a bit embarrassed to confess that she has never ever sewn a garment with boning in it before and this seems like a possibly-good experiment.  If it won't work or you know of a fail-proof trick for making it work, please speak up!