Sewing Cravings

I know this is impractical and liable to cause procrastination but I really want a sewing machine of my own to sew things.

I don't have my own despite all my waffling about the stuff I made over the summer. I was using my mum's machine but as I am back at uni I no longer have access to it and I still really want to sew clothes and bags. Near the end of the summer I sketched a few designs based around modification of the pattern used to make the skirt in this post.
I'm planning on combining the three teirs of the skirt into a plain gatherd skirt of three or four panels. The good points of this is that I can use fabrics with bigger prints and theres less work involed as there's only one gathering session needed for it.  The bad points is that with fewr areas of gathering any mistakes would be more obvius, it would need a much greater amount of lining and both the gatherd fabric and gatherd lining would be on the same seam meaning very heavy going for the sewing machine when it comes to sewing the lining.
Another possability of this modding would be having a skirt like the one above but with a ruffle at the bottom of it with a slightly shorter main body.
These two designs have near limitless potential for decorations like embroidery onto the skirt itself or sewing on fabric patches and applique of felt or ebroiderd Aida fabric