Burda #9489

My girls are getting old enough (12 and 9 yrs) that they want regular skirts—not just pull on elastic-waist ones. Do you know how hard it is to find fitted skirts with zippers for girls? They’re still too small to use women’s patterns so I’m left searching the big girl’s patterns. Trust me, they are few and far between. If I was a pattern drafter, I could make a lot of money by designing patterns for tweens. I hate that word “tween” but it is really is the easiest way to describe this  middle age for girls—too young for teens/women, too big for girls. Thankfully Burda has a tiny handful of patterns for tweens.

Like most Burda patterns, it is well drafted and the directions are easy to follow. I followed the directions for the yellow skirt but didn’t even need them once I made the black polka-dot version. I love that this skirt has a yoke and belt loops. The gathers make it nice and full since the pattern is meant for lightweight fabrics. I used 100% quilting-weight cottons.

On the above skirt you can see that I eliminated the pocket trim which is purely decorative. The below skirt has a gray linen for the pocket trim. I used stitch #412 on my sewing machine, Bernina 830, to trim the gray linen. I think it looks like flying butterflies. So cute.

The one thing I need to figure out is why once I install the zipper the yoke left and right do not match up anymore, as seen in the below photo. Drives me crazy.

I did lengthen the skirts considerably. About 3”. I made both girls a size 12. I would also add that if you make this skirt wrap the yoke around your daughter before you sew it on because it might be too small if your daughter isn’t a skinny little stick. I’m glad I did this because I ended up cutting a wider yoke for the black skirt. My two girls have completely different body types. It was an easy fix to cut a wider yoke—didn’t affect the skirt at all—just gather a little less to accommodate the wider yoke.

All in all I loved this pattern and will use it over and over for the next several years with my girls.

By the way, the ties are just scarves from my closet—I need to buy them some belts now! And their adorable button-down shirts are from Lands End.