My First Pencil Skirt - Burda 6705

Having looked in my wardrobe and discovered a disproportionately low number of skirts (although this is relative, as I have a lot of clothes) I decided a skirt project would be my first.

The Burda skirt with jacket pattern was provided free with a sewing magazine and in my mind I envisaged a simple process of sewing a few seams and making a slit in the back.

It only took for me to open the pattern and read... then re read... and re read again to realise that this was not going to be straight forward. The only saving grace is I'm glad I did not opt to also do the matching jacket!

 I first had to educate myself re the following terms;
-Baste (temporary tack stitching)

-Darts (folded wedge of fabric, stitched to give a garment shape)

-Underlap (the lower of two overlapped pieces of fabric)

-Interfacing (used on the wrong side of fabric to make it more rigid)

-Edge stitch (similar to a top stitch, but 2-3mm from edge of fabric)
 along with how to apply facing, lining and an invisible zipper - thank you Google and You Tube!

I also found this great blog which deals with sewing terms HERE.

Having realised the scale of the task, I decided to take it in stages and aimed to complete the skirt in a week.

I had some lovely wool fabric from John Lewis that was perfect but as it was so nice I really wanted to avoid ruining it. Unfortunately in spite of best endeavors, there were errors and let's just say I'm a champion un-picker after this project; but the end result (see below) I believe justified the time and I am pleased that I persevered.

The Top 3 Things I Learned From This Project Are...

1) There are many ways to accomplish the same goal in sewing; so even if a pattern directs you (or confuses you, as in my case) just seek out an alternative approach which I found on social media and this helped me no end.

2) Darts are really easy once you've marked them and I did this by inserting pins through both the pattern and the fabric and then marking by just lifting up the pattern whilst the pins remained in place.

3) You are a lot bigger than you think! I am normally a size 8 but for this pattern I was a 12,  so this project made me aware of my measurements and the importance of checking with each pattern, as I imagine brands will vary, just as shops do.

I hope you've enjoyed this post and thanks for reading!