Someone recommended the Liesl & Co. patterns to me a while back and I briefly looked at the Everyday Skirt at the time. A sale then came up a few months later and I purchased the pattern as a “this will come in useful sometime” kind of pattern. Then I bought this cotton fabric from the Sarah Jane Sommer collection for Michael Miller. I love it and in one of those happy lightbulb moments, I thought of the pattern and it immediately struck me as a perfect marriage.

Anyway, I printed off the pdf and it was a little different from others I had put together. Rather than creating one massive sheet and then tracing off from there, each pattern piece had its own section of pdf. You would think this would lead to wasted paper, but it was drafted so that sometimes you would get a piece of paper with two halves on it for the same pattern piece, which you cut out separately and reverse. I’m not sure I’m explaining it all that well, but I actually quite enjoyed not having a gigantic piece of paper to wrestle with. Nice one, drafters!

I decided to make a size L, even though I’m currently sizing between an L and XL (the donuts, the donuts), but I read some reviews that suggested there was a little ease in this pattern, so I thought I’d try the smaller version. As it turns out, this was the right decision as it fits fine and the elasticated back definitely gives you some leeway. In addition, the skirt is actually designed to sit at your low waist level. If you prefer wearing your skirt at your natural waist, you can go down a size. I don’t mind either, and I reckon in these pictures, it’s about halfway between anyway, but again, it gives you a little ease to play with.

The pattern has a front, back and two side panels, which gives a nice shape to the skirt. It also has pockets (yay!) and a great feature: a waistband with a straight front and an elasticated back. Lovely. Now, you may have already spotted the obvious mistake in my make. It’s pretty much the only thing that went wrong and I only noticed it when I was too far down the line to do much, short of starting all over again. In all honesty I really don’t care too much. In fact, since the piece in question is the main one I can see, it’s actually giving me exactly the view of my lovely fabric that I would like! 🙂 If you don’t know what I’m talking about – good! But my husband spotted it in 0.005 secs, shedding me of all hope that nobody would notice, haha.

The instructions are very good: just the right amount of information and very clearly explained. I decided to pink the pocket edges and used French seams elsewhere.

The front is constructed first, by adding the pocket lining and sewing two lines of gathering stitches. The pocket fronts are then added and the front waistband (which is interfaced) stitched on, before creating your gathers to ensure the skirt fits the waistband nicely. I like the amount of gather – it’s not a huge amount, but enough to give a pretty effect and shape. The waistband is stitched in place and folded to the front and edgestitched for a clean finish.

The back is constructed by creating a double elastic channel and using two 1/2″ pieces of elastic, fed through. I ended up taking around 1.5″ off the length of each for a better fit. The only bit that stumped me a little was the final hem instruction. It was straightforward in the sense that you turned 0.5″ to the wrong side, then another 1.5″, before edgestitching. But before turning, you were asked to put in a line of gathering stitches at the 0.5″ mark and then slightly gather the hem before the final edgestitching. I didn’t totally understand that really, so I didn’t gather, and it seemed to turn out fine. Maybe someone can explain what was meant here?

Stitching on the front waistband

Overall, I really enjoyed making this skirt. After all the recent makes with knits and slinky fabrics, learning new skills, I was ready for a satisfying cotton sew – and this delivered. It took me around half a day and I am going to make another one very soon. I can absolutely understand why it’s called the “Everyday” Skirt – it’s so easy to pull on and head out. This is sure to become a bit of a wardrobe staple for me: I think I’ll try a slightly different fabric next time and see how it turns out.

Worn in the evening, with a top over, instead of under.