Burda wof 01-2009-112 Skirt ... Part 1

"Who says ladies can't be sexy? It all depends how you dress those curves, eg in a ... slim pencil skirt with a high corset-waistband that sculpts a first-class wasp-waist and pretty hips."

Well I sure could do with a wasp-waist! This all started when I tried on a skirt in these lines at an Australian boutique called Cue. I love Cue clothing and can fit into them again.. hooray!

The skirt I I tried on had a high waisted yoke and was in a plaid with a bias panel on the front and a little frou-frou bit at the back hemline - cute as but the colours were a bit bright for me. However it did really give me curves (which I don't really have!) Some of that was to do with the bias plaid panel, but I decided I really needed to make a skirt in this high-waisted style. Enter bwof 01-2009-112!

Ta-da... finished skirt on hanger shot....

I had a lovely piece of wool/silk I picked up on the remnant table at Gardams so decided to use that and started tracing. The pattern has a facing only and no lining, but I decided that this style of skirt with this fabric really needed a yoke facing and a lining, so the learning curve started. This has been a great exercise as I have learnt a lot, even though it is not a difficult skirt.

First up, I decided that the fabric needs underlining as it is quite loosely woven and soft. Apart from fraying I didn't want my bottom-print staying in the dress after I had finished sitting down! Spoke to Felicity and a few others on Pattern Review for advice and decided to use a fusible interfacing called BMV-4. This is magic stuff and really improves the hand of the fabric. Soft and smooth but just gives it that bit of ooomph this fabric needed. (To purchase this interfacing - see Felicity at For Frock's Sake!). As the wool/silk was a remnant I had to be frugal with it's cutting (I also cut a vest to get the best use of this expensive lux fabric), so I ended up not having enough to do a facing for the yoke. As it was, I think this fabric was too thick to use for this so I used my lining fabric but also underlined it with BMV-4 so that it became a bit more gutsy! The lining fabric I used is called Goldliner, which is a pre-shrunk rayon from Gardams Fabrics.

From reading other's blogs I learnt to add Rigalene to the yoke facing - from Ann at Gorgeous Fabrics. Thanks Ann! Trena also had a post about this at The Slapdash Sewist.

This photo shows the whole facing with the Rigalene sewn to the side seams only. Note - lots of pieces in the yoke. If you make this skirt mark all the pieces carefully!

Then when attending a class with Felicity I also learned to put a little cap on the rigalene so that it would not poke through the fabric! I used some bias binding which I simply sewed over the ends of the rigalene.

I then used this post from Summerset of Pins and Needles to help me put in the invisible zipper. I have learnt this in a class and can do a good zipper but the pointers on matching the seam lines are invaluable and I managed this on my first pass...

I was pretty happy with that. Next up was to add a tab to the inside yoke over the top of the zipper. I don't know about you, but I hate hook and eyes that are all scratchy at the top of the zip. Usually I do nothing and the zip is fine by itself, but as this is so high-waisted I thought it could probably be reinforced a bit so there would be no zipper-slippage. First up I made a tab...

Then I put it in before adding the facing to the yoke. This is it closed....


... and open.
I used a snap as I really hate hooks and eyes and I think this will give enough holding power. If it doesn't I will change it to a button and button-hole. (I have seen this on other posts recently - Marji's posts about pencil skirts on Fibre Arts Afloat.)

Here is a pic of the inside of the skirt finished. The lining is a bit crumpled looking as I just pressed the outside yoke and hem really well using a clapper as the fabric was thick and bouncy and needed the extra press to give it a more professional finish.

And the reason there are all these photos of the skirt but none of the skirt on me... well it's too f***g cold! We are in the middle of a cold snap. Considering Winter has only just started we don't expect frosts yet or nights that drop to less then 0 degrees C (that is 32 degrees F)... brrrr! Frost on our front verge this morning...

Modelling session to follow as well as my next project... the Hot Patterns 'Fit to be Tied' shirt.