pick, pick, unpick

Mr T and I play DnD with a group of people I work with. Last night, we were happily trying out new specs between the two of us when the DM snatched him away and kept talking to him for an hour and a half (result is we're meeting at a pub to do a side quest tonight!)

It looks like a bell!

This, of course, meant that I had that time to spare - so I spent about an hour unpicking my Pastille. Unpicking the skirt from the bodice was the most difficult thing, but then I decided to also unpick the lining. The reasoning for this was that the skirt itself was somewhat small in the waist, and the lining does not allow the corduroy to stretch naturally. Luckily I can get away with this because the skirt itself is long enough to be worn with a slip.

So now I've got a skirt that stretches, that needs some modifications:
1. I need to add a waist facing to it - I initially wanted to do a waist band, but that will have the same non-stretch problem as the lining.
2. Add an invisible zipper. Lapped would also work, but without a closing button, I feel an invisible is more suitable.
3. I also need to make sure that what happened with the rocker skirt doesn't happen here - I'll need to stitch the waist facing together with some non stretchy, removable material. Right now, I'm thinking tissue paper or interfacing. The idea is that I don't want it to stretch while I'm sewing it, but I want it to have room once I'm done, so the stabilizing material needs to be removable. Does anyone have a better idea?
4. Come to think about it, this means I'll need to do a zig zag stitch to make this plan work.
5. Last, but not least, I also want to take in the hips a bit, as there seem to be a good 2 inches of ease on each side, where 0.5-1 should be enough given the quality of the material.

Once the skirt is wearable, I want to do 2 other things that will make it look better:
1. Hand stitch the bottom pleats apart. Right now, they tend to work like an accordion and I need to keep pulling at them to be seen and not fold into each other in a completely irregular manner that makes the skirt look like whoever hemmed it was half asleep. I'm blaming this on the corduroy - I sincerely doubt cotton would have this problem.
2. Embellish with some sort of embroidery. Haven't quite decided what to do yet, but something rather abstract sounds enticing.