Skirt added to bodice

Well this has been a right pain because I didn't believe in myself and I have pinned and re-pinned until my fingers ached! First off I cut three lengths for the gown as I wanted lots of skirt omph, but I am quite small and the skirt fabric quite bulky, especially with the lining and interlining so I pleated it up and I couldn't reduce it enough no matter what I did. JL said that its all to do with simultaneous (sp) equations and walked me through some really complicated maths that made no sense to me but made her happy (grin). Finally I used simple arithmetic to figure out how much fabric I could cram into the bodice if I used 3" pleats and had to take out one of my skirt segments. All of this took two weeks for this bear of little brain to figure out! Then I decided I wanted a split skirt to show off an undergown so had to unpick the skirts lining anf interlining and re do and create blue velvet guards and stitch all this back together, la, la, la! The next big mistake was that the bodice looked way too short to me, shorter than my true waist so I, in my foolish wisdom, decided to lengthen it. Yes, I know, stupid idea, why not just create a new bodice, but heh, who am I to not make big mistakes to learn from. I extended it, this took a stupid amount of time and was not easy with interlining, lining and fashion fabric to contend with. I then pinned the bodice onto it and tried it on, you guessed it, way, way too long, the skirt sat on my hips. So more un-pinning, more ripped fingers, lots of frog stitching later I pinned on the skirt to bodice at its original length and had perfection and here's the back view as yet unlaced and you can see my rope corset spiral lacing The skirt isn't as boofy as I wanted, but I think it works. I have found an old curtain in red and gold to turn into my under skirt.