Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Burda 05-2012 #113 Stretchy High-Waisted Skirt

I think I’m in love with the May Burda. There are so many cute things in this issue. I think it may also be that it’s spring in Alaska and I really love this time of year. This has no zippers or anything so if you’ve got a waist and hips, use a very stretchy fabric. I used some ITY from Fabric.com. The waist is loose on mine because I’ve got ample booty-bottom to get through that hole. I didn’t want to make it fit my waist but then pop seams to get it on.

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Some fun chevrons on the one side.
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I think the tucks on the side are very flattering.
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I decided to make this first pattern because it looked easy and fast and that’s what I’m all about these days. I didn’t really realize how quick and fast it would be. It’s only one pattern piece front and back and no closures of any kind. It’s just a pull-on skirt. The only difficult thing is all those tucks in the side seam. There are six front and back on the same side.
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To mark all the tucks, I like to use my tracing paper and tracing wheel. I stick the tracing paper between the layers with inky edges out (that way I can do both sides at the same time) and roll over the lines on the front of the pattern piece. Here you can see the marking lines on the WS of the fabric.
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Making sure you actually sew on the correct lines is hard to do sometimes. I usually stick a pin through both layers at the end of the pleat. Then I “pin baste” it and go through the front and back two more times like below. Each time I go through the fabric I can check to make sure my lines really match up.
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Then, because this fabric likes to get sucked into the machine, I sew differently than I normally do. I start in the middle, take a few forward stitches, go back to the beginning, and then go forward to the end. At the very end, I take a few backstitches to secure the stitches.
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All that works gives you perfect results every time! Or, wait, no it doesn’t it. Maybe my “pin basting” didn’t work after all. Hmmmmm. Look at the bottom two tucks in particular. Yeesh.
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I love it. It’s cute and springy. I’ll have to move on to another pattern in this issue. Although, I need to make a duvet for my bed. Where do you guys go for affordable, nice flat sheets? I think I’m going to go for some color in there. Right now, it’s a lot of brown. I need spring!!!