This skirt was featured in the May 2012 edition of BurdaStyle magazine, but it’s one of the few that’s also available for purchase as a downloadable pdf if you missed this issue (a really great one, IMHO!).
This is quite an interesting pattern because of its simplicity – it’s only one pattern piece (the same for the front and the back), with a bunch of radiating pleats on one hip, and just two side seams to sew. There are three hem lengths suggested on the pattern, and I went with the shortest, Hem length A, which ends up right at my knees.
And that’s it – no zippers, no elastic, no nothing. So it’s a really quick and easy skirt to sew up in one evening!
(Worn with: a mustard yellow ASOS vest, 1950s vintage cropped jacket from This Shop Rocks, and Wolford Captivate tights, ooh 50% off right now!)
The waistband facing is integrated into the pattern piece, so you just fold it inside and stitch in the ditch at the side seams, but without any interfacing (which you can’t have because you need the stretch) or elastic (which I couldn’t work out how to do nicely), the facing really likes to flop out on its own, so I hand-tacked mine carefully inside along the front and back, too.
The skirt as drafted was not tight enough for me, or for the fabric I chose – a basic cotton/viscose jersey I received from Veronica when I was in Paris in March. Thanks Veronica!!
Because it’s just one pattern piece, the back view is a mirror-image of the front!
I’m not the only one to be drawn to this pattern, either! Dawn sewed this before my issue even arrived, and Helene emailed me last week to ask if I thought adding an invisible zipper was a good idea. Personally, I’d hesitate to put a zipper in, just because a) I loathe installing invisible zippers in knits and b) I think in order to really work, this skirt should be tight, and it’d pull on the zipper.
The pleats didn’t really line up for me on the hip, but I’m okay with that.
What I would recommend, though, is making absolutely sure that your fabric has a lot of lycra and good recovery, because the waist portion of mine really sagged throughout the day (which you can see in these photos, taken after sitting at my desk all day), and the closer you can get the fit, the better. The starburst pleats are really nice though, and I like the design a lot!