I made a gold skirt at Christmas – and here it is. It’s taken me less than 6 months to blog about it so I’m still technically on schedule, as we’re closer to Xmas 2015 than to Xmas 2016. Just.
The pattern is from Burda December 2015 – it’s on their website here.
The fabric is some extremely cheap glittery gold polyester which I bought at the Harrogate knitting and stitching show, I got about 4 metres. I didn’t bother pre-washing it as I suspected that all the gold would fall straight off. In fact I still haven’t washed it. But I have only worn it once. It turns out that metallic gold skirts don’t get a lot of wear from January to April. Maybe I can bust it out again this summer though.
It’s a really great pattern actually. It’s called a ‘wrap skirt’ but it’s actually just a stitched down pleat that sits underneath a yoke and waistband. In no way does it ‘wrap’. Burda, stop trying to deceive us. It’s bad enough that you torture us with your pattern instructions, which seem to have been translated from German by someone who has recently taken four weeks of ‘Speak English for fun and profit!’ evening classes.
This fabric was not very easy to iron so I ended up topstitching most of the seams down.
This photo shows how the pleat works. The facings aren’t attached to the body of the skirt at all.
I put an exposed zipper on this which was probably a mistake – the fabric is a bit too lightweight and the zip is a bit too heavy. The waistband fastens with a button on the back.
The pattern actually makes a mid-calf length skirt, which I did cut out, but I ended up chopping off most of it and making it into a mini skirt. Some lovely people on Instagram helped me decide whether to go long or short.
Please do excuse the hastily pinned up hems.
I would like to make the longer version again soon, especially after going to all the effort of tracing the pattern out and adding all the seam allowances.
I keep looking at Burda patterns for coats and stuff that have about 15 pattern pieces, but my brain just shuts down at the thought of tracing out alllllll of those facings and fiddly little pieces. Maybe one day. At the moment, 5 pattern pieces is about my limit for Burda.
Here is a terrible quality selfie I took on the only occasion this skirt has been out of the house so far, a work Christmas party. But you can sort of see the sparkle.
If you are a fan of this fabric, my sister has also made a dress out of it which looks really awesome.
It wasn’t the nicest thing in the world to sew with, and I have no idea what I’ll do with the 2 metres I have left. A gold jacket? Some kind of mad gold shirt that will be the sweatiest thing ever? Most likely it will sit on my shelf until I do some panic sewing next Christmas. Metallic clothes seem like such a great idea until January 1st when reality hits.
Save yourself the hassle of sewing any more garments with the rest of the fabric. I love your skirt, but you don’t want to end up looking like a Barbie doll, all glittery gold from head to toe. Or maybe you do … at any rate, why don’t you make a lovely big round Christmas tree skirt with the remaining two meters of fabric? It would be easy to make (just serge all the raw edges, or turn under and machine stitch) and will be a festive addition to your winter holidays for many years to come.
I literally snorted when reading your description of burda instructions. Hilarious. Thanks for the chuckle!
It looks absolutely fab! I love the fabric 🙂 I’ve got a growing pile of tricky fabrics that I’ve been drawn to, so this is really making me want to tackle them! X
I think it looks great! I too made that same skirt (in a boring black wool) and didn’t blog it either so maybe it’s the skirt? As for wearing it, it would be cute in summer with white and as it’s gay pride season all over (at least here in California) you could wear it every weekend to a festival and parade and still be the most sedate person there.
Looks fab in the shorter length on you. I think you could totally get some Summer wear out of it too.
I really like this. The colour doesn’t make the fabric look cheap at all. I would wear it every day but it would look great in the summer. You can never have too make sparkles. Your sister’s dress is also lovely
I love it – perfect for the holidays. And the leftover fabric – disco jeans of course 🙂
Its lovely, such a pretty colour AND sparkley! Would definitely work for summer.
Hi Kathryn, this is really pretty! I think you can wear it in summer – with a white summer shirt and flat sandals?
I like it a lot! Sparkles are for life not just for Christmas!