making a couple of Zierstoff Gina skirts

This is the third Zierstoff pattern I’ve made now, a Gina skirt this time, and I’m really pleased with it. The pattern is just two pieces-the skirt and the waistband, and it doesn’t take much fabric either. I chose to make it in a nice plain Ponte from Backstitch near Cambridge for a first version, there’s no stripe or pattern matching that way., sneaky eh?!

Because the fabric was plain I placed the pattern on the normal grain although if you have a stripe you could also position it on the the bias to get an interesting effect.

I’ve explained Zierstoff’s PDF method previously here and this one is no different. The one thing I’ve changed here is that the skirt is a half piece so you’re meant to ‘flip’ the pattern to get the other half. This is OK if you’re cutting the two pieces [front and back] on the fold but if not-and especially if you want it on the bias-I’d suggest you mirror it into a whole pattern either using spot-and-cross paper, tissue, Swedish Tracing paper or even newspaper.

This was my second version made using the lovely striped jersey from Fabricland in Salisbury. You can see better how I extended the pattern piece using Swedish tracing paper.

There are only two pattern pieces for this skirt (skirt and yoke) so that’s very little printing, you’ll need to cut 2 skirts and 4 of the yoke pieces. At this point I refer to the online instructions which Zierstoff provide with written and photographic plans, I don’t bother printing them off too. I’ll be honest here because I think in a couple of places the instructions suffer a little from being translated from German to English because I found them a bit muddled but seeing as I can’t speak German anyway it isn’t the end of the world-the style is so simple you can probably work it out and the photos really help anyway.

This is a skirt you can put together in no time at all if you’re working in a plain fabric (or a non-taxing pattern) it took me a little longer in these jazzy stripes but not much. Don’t forget to use a jersey, ballpoint or stretch needle if you’re sewing a knit fabric.

I pinned the first skirt piece on top of the second to match it up. Be careful not to pull the piece out of shape though, you don’t want it all wonky.

Join the skirts together at the side seams and overlock the edges (or do it all on the overlocker if you prefer) You could hem at this point too if you wish using a twin needle if you have one. Mine isn’t great and I have to swap to a different machine to do it which is a bit disruptive but it does the job and a good press generally sorts it out.

The yoke pieces are first sewn together at the side seams 2 and 2 and then joined to each other at the waist seam forming a tube.

Cut the elastic to your own waist measurement, overlap and join together. Pin and stitch it to the seam allowance on the waistband. I used a long zig zag to do this. You may need to stretch the elastic a little to fit the seam as you sew.

Stitching on the elastic. I don’t usually have my pins like this but I find it’s better for this process-just don’t sew to fast and go over them!!

Next open out the waist band and stitch through the elastic again as though you’re under stitching it. This will be on the back of the basque and not show on the finished skirt. You can see where the elastic is sewn on here too.

Zigzagging on the reverse and the smooth front.

After I’d finished sewing in the elastic the basque is folded WS together and I machine basted it together along the bottom to hold the two layers together. Simply join the basque to the skirt then and finish the hem if you didn’t do it previously.

So there it is, a super-quick and REALLY comfortable jersey skirt. Although I like this length you could easily lengthen (or shorten) it and because the basque is flat over the tummy it’s very smooth and flattering and other close fitting tops would go over it too.

All finished. I’m wearing the Sew Me Something Imogen top with it. I made this as a wearable toile in a slubbed linen-look cotton which was gifted to me, I’ve made it since their own beautiful coral soft linen fabric too and it’s beautiful-I’ve haven’t blogged about them yet though.

This is last year’s ‘refashioners’ jacket. There’s a separate blog for that here

Back view so you can see the various darts and seam lines on it.

Grey ponte version, I don’t have enough plain bottoms (!!) so this should start to fill that gap.

You could easily buy, print, stick together, cut out and sew this skirt in an evening if you put your mind to it so what are you waiting for? I was kindly provided with the pattern by Zierstoff but the fabric is my own. The opinions expressed are purely my own too. You might be interested to know the pattern comes in children’s sizes too.

Happy sewing

Sue