Butterick 6285 The Skirt

The Butterick 6285 skirt is a circle skirt with pleats. The pleats are double pleats, so you need a lot of fabric.

But it has the twirl factor:

 Fabric:

There is a fun little story how I came to the fabric for this skirt. I was looking for a jersey for the top and ordered some fabric samples at florence, one of my favorite stores. The jersey had this flower print and I liked it, but I was unsure if it would be suitable for the top as it did not contain any spandex. And the fabrics at florence are rather on the expensive side, so I was reluctant to order. A few day later they had a sale, and I only saw this very print and read “stretch” and I placed my order for 3m immediately. When the package arrived and I opend the box I was shocked: The fabric I got was not a knit fabric, but a woven. I doublechecked the website and realized my mistake. They had the same print on a cotton stretch satin, and that was the one on sale. The fabric is rather thick and I had no idea what to do with it. My first thought was to put it away into the deepest corner of my stash and pretend that it was never there. But suddenly I realized I could make the skirt out of it and use a plain color for the top. I am really happy about my mistake now as the fabric was just perfect for this project. Only thing is that I did not have enough fabric to try any pattern matching. But due to the many pleats the pattern is broken anyway so I can live with that.

I wanted this skirt to be special, so I underlined the cotton sateen with silk organza. As lining I used a silk crepe de chine.

Alterations:

I cut the skirt in size 10. I had to lenghthen the waistband a bit. This was a good thing because the skirt fit just into the lenghthend waistband. I read about this issue also on Pattern Review.

Construction:

This pattern has different seam allowances for every seam so you have to pay attention. I marked the seamlines on the pattern and traced them onto the organza. I then basted the organza to the fashion fabric and treated them as one layer. All seams are finished with bias tape. The hem is also finished with bias tape. I used this technique for the first time, but it worked like a charm. The bias tape is handstitched to the organza so that you don not see any stitches on the outside. The seams of the lining are french seams, the hem is a double turned hem.

The zipper is a handpicked lapped zipper. On the picture below you also see that there is nearly no overlap of the waistband. 

I basted the pleats and left them like this until the skirt was finished to make sure that nothing shifted. This was really mandatory for this thick fabric.

For the waistband I used a technique that Marina from couture squared described here. An interface is catch stitched to the outer band. I used a double layer of stable linen as interfacing. 

The edges are turned to the inside and catch stiched in place. Then you sew the waistband to the skirt. I also attached the hook and eye. The inner part of the waistband is finished after the lining is attached to the skirt.

And this is how the finished waistband looks. The inner waitband is made out of the lining fabric. This helps to reduce bulk which was really helpful for my thick fabric.

Conclusion:

I love this skirt. It was a lot of work but I enjoyed it and it was worth the effort. Unfortunately I do not have a lot opportunities to wear this skirt.