I hope your weekend was a nice one! I took Sunday off, so I am a day behind in the Sewalong schedule- I hope you don't mind! Especially seeing as we are diving in to one of the trickier bits of the pattern. It's just got lots of little steps, so feel free to take as many breaks as you need as we work our way through assembling our skirt!
When you are all ready with your snacks and coffee or tea, meet me on page 43 of your instruction booklet!
Before we start sewing our skirt together, we need to finish our side seams. You can do this by serging, pinking, or even sewing some pretty 1/2” (0.6 cm) bias tape along the edges. For this version, I pinked my edges then turned them under 1/8" (0.3 cm) an stitched the pinked edge down.
Note: If you are using bias tape to finish your seams, I suggest stopping your tape 5/8” (1.6 cm) from the bottom of your skirt. This will help reduce bulk when you get to hemming your skirt!
With right sides together (RST), pin your front and back skirt panels together at the side seams.
The seam allowance for the following step is 1.5” (3.8 cm).
Starting at the top of your skirt at the notch nearest to the raw edge, baste your side seams together but only doing so for 6” (15.2 cm) which is marked on your pattern with a notch.
Once you have reached your 6” (15.2 cm) mark, shorten your stitch length back to a regular stitch. Sew a few stitches, backstitch, and then sew the rest of your seam.
Press your seams open. Repeat each of these steps on the other side of your skirt.
This next part can be a little mind bendy, so feel free to pause, grab a
quick snack and stretch a bit before continuing!
Alright, let’s tackle the last tricky bit of this skirt! Those 1.5” (3.8 cm) seam allowances are going to create button plackets to form the opening of the skirt- so cool, right?
With the front skirt’s wrong side facing you, pin your seam allowances in place.
We are going to sew our pressed seam allowance 1” (2.5 cm) away from our finished seam, starting from the top edge and going down 6” (15.2 cm). This stitching will be visible on the outside of your skirt.
Repeat on your other side seam.
If you would like to add an optional fabric placket, pause here to check out the Optional Placket tutorial before moving on to the next steps!
Now, press all of your seams towards the CF of your skirt.
Flip your skirt so that you are now looking at the right side of your skirt
front.
Sewing from the right side, place your needle into the bottom of the stitching line you sewed in the previous step and sew a line of stitches to the side seam. Make sure you sew through ALL your layers (Front skirt + both seam allowances).
Repeat with the other side of your skirt.
Whew! You did it! You accomplished the bit of this project that
had me thinking for TWO whole weeks- I think we all deserve a
collective high five!
Now it’s time to open up your button placket. Grab your handy seam ripper and remove those basting stitches.
Repeat the last two steps on the other side of your skirt and feel the power of being awesome by tackling tricky sewing techniques!
The last thing we need to do with our skirt before attaching it to our bib is to create some gathering stitches on both the front and back skirt panels.
Without backstitching, use a long straight stitch to sew 1/4” (0.6 cm) from the inside of one placket edge to the other on your skirt pieces. Sew a second line of long straight stitches 3/8” (1 cm ) from that row of stitches. Be sure to leave a nice long thread tail on either end of your stitching.
I used a brightly colored thread so that I could easily remove my gathering stitches once the skirt is attached to the waistband.
I used a brightly colored thread so that I could easily remove my gathering stitches once the skirt is attached to the waistband.
Pull lightly on the bobbin threads from one side of your skirt to help gather it.
Don’t worry too much about how gathered your skirt is — we will adjust those gathers once we get to attaching the skirt to the bib tomorrow in Part 6 - Waistband!