I have been trying to “shop my stash” for some time now as my fabric stash is bursting at the seams! However, every time I use some fabric that I already own, I end up going on a big fabric binge! As a result, I have been matching the patterns I already own to my fabric. This Burda pattern has been on my to-do list for some time now, and in typical Katherine style, I couldn’t find any fabric to use! After spending hours trying to find suitable fabric, I decided to refocus on my own hoard stash and I ended up finding a lovely grey cotton twill fabric.
The fabric was bought from The Textile Centre and was in the sale at a bargain £1.99 pm! Unfortunately, it is now out of stock however you can still buy the fabric in a different colour here.
Like many others, I am not a huge fan of Burda patterns. I find their instructions nigh on impossible to follow and find they always come up large. However, I was really drawn to the shape of the skirt as I thought it would flatter my pear-shaped figure and so I decided to persevere and go for it. I cut out style A as I liked the thicker waistband.
The pattern is a great stash busting make as it used less than 1.5 meters. It is also great for new sewists as it only consists of 3 pattern pieces, the front, back and the waistband. You will also need a 9″ invisible zipper (however, I used a 7″ inch one). There are no complicated techniques, just a couple of pleats on either side of the skirt.
I cut out the size 10 as the finished measurements came up quite large. However once I sewed the pleats on the front and back part of the skirt, I didn’t like the look of how deep they were. I decided to make the pleats at the front and back a little narrower as they accentuated my hips too much. The waistband was obviously then too big for me so I pulled the waistband in a little to ensure it wasn’t too baggy at the waist.
As you can see the finished waistband is half the width of the original pattern. Once I cut out the pieces and put my cutting mat away, I realised that the instructions said to fold over 1.5 cm of the waistband and then stitch. I think this looks quite messy as the inside will have the interfacing showing. I was then going to cut out another waistband so I could fully line it, however, once I tried on the skirt I thought it looked better with a thinner waistband. Therefore I then folded over the waistband and “stitched in the ditch” to finish it off.
The instructions for the skirt is to leave the skirt unlined, which I decided to do as the skirt is for the summer months and I wanted it to be as light as possible. The fabric is also pretty thick with a nice amount of stretch to the width, so it wasn’t necessary to line it. However, when I make more for the winter months I will definitely line them. I finished the seams with my overlocker and sewed a 1cm hem at the bottom.
Positives:
The skirt is extremely comfortable and I can see myself wearing it a lot during the summer. It was also a really quick and easy make and unlike other Burda patterns, the instructions are somewhat easy to follow. However, this may be because I have experience sewing a waistband and sewing pleats. I wouldn’t recommend the skirt pattern for a beginner, purely because the instructions are not as detailed as other easy pattern skirts I have used. However, if you are willing to research techniques then I would say go for it! The skirt only took me a couple of hours to complete, which makes it a lovely evening make!
Negatives:
The pattern doesn’t really have many negatives. The only thing I would criticise is the sizing, as I am very pear shaped, I didn’t want a tight-fitting pencil skirt. However, I still had to cut out the smallest size, which I found crazy since I have 43″ hips! For much slimmer women out there, they may find the skirt too baggy.
Overall I will definitely be making more of this pattern, as I have finally found a pencil type skirt pattern which is flattering on!
Hours it took to make: 2
Cost of the pattern: £3.00 from ebay
cost of fabric: £3.00
Katherine x
