The "Taking Notes" Skirt tutorial

,!!! Update!!!! This pattern is available on the new Sewing In No Mans Land website: sewinginnomansland.com The link below is no longer active. Thank you!
I am actually not a HUGE fan of the high waisted style. And, I am usually so behind on trends it is probably out this season anyway ha! I love how it looks on tall bone thin girls but since I am short and leaning more towards "big boned" they usually make me look a little chunky. But I couldn't get this idea out of my head. It is actually an adaptation of an apron I saw on a much-to-expensive-to-ever-buy-any-of-it website. I was of course worried about the high waist thing but LOVE it.

Or, a better picture of the actual skirt up close

I loved it so much I had to make one for Evie so we could be matchie matchie in Rome... okay we totally won't wear them on the same day but hers turned out super cute as well.

You can find both patterns HERE it is listed under "Taking Notes Skirt". What is great is how super easy this is! There is actually only one piece to the pattern. The rest is up to you. How long you want the skirt, how gathered, how wide and long the ties are etc.

What you need:

3/4 yard of fabric

1/3 yard of light interfacing (I used up the last of my interfacing and it was heavy ugh)

Sewing machine

Maybe a zipper (it is up to you)

Once you have printed our the pattern, cut two from your fabric and 1 from the interfacing. Then cut out your ties. To make the ties you will need 4 pieces the same width and length. Create your ties by placing two lengths of fabric right side together and sewing all the way around, leaving one end open. Then, pull the fabric right side out. I then iron and top stitch but that is up to you.

I wanted my ties wide and long so I needed to gather the ends so that it would match up with the end of the top of my skirt.

Take one of the fabric pieces you cut out from the pattern and the one piece of interfacing. Attach the interfacing to the wrong side of the fabric. Now take your other top piece of fabric and align it right sides together to the one you just attached the interfacing to:

Now take the two ties you made and slip them in between the two piece of fabric at both ends. I always have mine stick out the end a little, just for safe sewing :)

Once you have them positioned correctly you are going to start sewing about a half an inch from the bottom edge. Sew all the way up and over finishing about a half an inch from the other edge. Now flip the entire thing right side out. Using your iron, iron up the bottom edges so you have a little pocket with nice clean edges:

When the whole process is done you should be left with something resembling this:

Now for the skirt portion. I wanted mine to hit right above my knee and be moderately gathered. I made two pieces and sewed them together simply because of the amount of fabric I had. If you only want one seam you can totally use one long piece of fabric. Either way, place your fabric right sides together and sew up the seams. Then hem up the bottom.

Now run a gathering stitch along the top. I then lined my skirt up with the top to adjust the gathering until it matched.

Then I turned the skirt bottom right side out and slid it up into the pocket we created earlier and pinned it all the way around

Now you are going to topstitch all the way around until the end. The back will have a bit of a gap. I decided to gather mine a little and then just hem it over. If you would like you can easily tighten this up and put a zipper in... I may end up doing that but for right now it works fine like this:

Now all you have left is to topstitch over and across the top of the skirt. This is optional but I really think it makes it look nice. That is it!

It has been requested that I show a few more finished product pictures so here you go:

the tie and skirt top

the entire skirt a little closer

The only difference between mine and Evie's was that I did NOT use interfacing on hers. I just didn't have any, but it turned out great. Plus I think it lets her move easier.

and this little lady is BUSY, she has lots of calls to make and friends to keep up with

I also made her a little hair clippy out of the scraps and the phone distracted her enough to leave it in for a bit!

She is getting FIVE teeth at once and this picture totally looks goofy and shows of her newest little snaggle tooth in the front

Enjoy, and I hope you took notes haaa haa I am so lame!

Cheers!

Kelly

PS I was asked by a few people where my bracelets are from. The big one is from Forever 21 for like 2 bucks and the bangles were a set of five from Anthropologie that I now have only two of. The three others were lost in the battle of "I'll give you whatever you want if you will just be quiet in church".