Matching skirts for Mother's Day - DIY pencil skirt

I kinda, sorta, made myself and the girls matching skirts for Mother’s Day. 🙈 I know it’s dorky, LOL, but I’m going to do it while my girls are still proud to match their Momma! Over on Instagram I gave a sneak peek of the skirts and promised to go into more detail about how to make a DIY pencil skirt.

I come from a a few generations of seamstresses. My mom can literally sew anything. Growing up my sister and I always has intricately sewn, handmade Halloween costumes. She can reupholster anything. Friends and family are always coming to her to altar prom dresses, wedding dresses, pants, you name it. She’s pretty much amazing.

My Grandma is also a fantastic seamstress and an expert quilter. She makes the most beautiful quilts and I’m sure is responsible for how amazing my mom is at sewing.

I wish I could say that I loved sewing with my mom from a very young age or that she taught me everything I know. Although I did sew with her here and there…for the most part I didn’t appreciate her talent and always wished that I could have those cheap, silly, plastic costumes and masks from Wal-mart like all of the other kids in my class at Halloween.

I remember designing clothes of my own at a very young age and doing my best to sew them up, but didn’t want to sit down with my mom to learn the actual fundamentals of sewing.

It wasn’t until I had kids of my own that I sat down to REALLY teach myself to sew. I started on an old machine that used to be my Grandmas, and eventually bought my own machine. After watching many YouTube videos and teaching myself some of the basics, I invested in a serger and took the leap to open my own Etsy shop to sell some of my handmade goods. You can check that out here if you’re interested. So really I’ve only been sewing for about 6 years. I’m a little embarrassed of some of the items I started off selling in my Etsy shop, but hey, everyone has to start somewhere.

So now on to the matching skirts. Something I would have hated as a kid, lol! Lucky for me, the girls are still young enough to love matching their Mom and each other!

I bought this beautiful floral double knit from fabric.com for around $6/yard. I wasn’t sure I would actually go through with the project, so I didn’t want to invest too much money! I purchased two yards of fabric for all three skirts and it was plenty with a little left over. $4/skirt isn’t bad!

Let’s get started with the process.

A pencil skirt is one of the easiest and most basic sewing projects! I love making them because it literally takes about 15 minutes once you have one or two under your belt AND anyone who already owns a pencil skirt that fits, can easily whip up a simple pattern.

I grabbed a stretchy pencil skirt from Old Navy that I’ve had for probably 10 years or more. I literally just placed the skirt on top of my fabric and cut out a front and back piece leaving about a quarter inch seam allowance all the way around.

I like how the waist fits on my Old Navy skirt, so I cut out a 5″ waist band exactly the same size. The 5 inch waist band will be folded over when sewn on and will create about a 2″ wide waist band once sewn into place. You can really make the waist band as thin or wide as you prefer. I’ve seen skirts like this done with an extra wide fold over waist band that looks super cute. I wanted a more dressy look and thought the thinner band would work better for that.

Finally I serged it all together. Simply put right sides of your two pieces together and serge up each side. Next, foldover your waist band one time and serge or stitch onto the skirt. I didn’t even pin it in place! If you’re using a sewing machine instead of a serger, use a stretch stitch like a zig zag.

I ironed a 1″ hem at the bottom of the skirt and used a double needle for a finished look. Done!

On to skirt #2! A little pocketed mini skirt for Vada.

Vada also has a skirt from Old Navy that I love. I added pockets to her skirt, BUT you could make this much more simple and whip it up in just a few minutes with no pockets! For this skirt you really wouldn’t even need to make a pattern if you weren’t planning on pockets. Simply place the skirt on the fabric and cut around it using the actual skirt itself as your pattern just like I did for my pencil skirt. I created a paper pattern from the original skirt so I could reuse it if needed.

I didn’t picture the little pocket pieces. I used the original skirt’s pockets and simply traced around them to create pocket patterns.

I cut out a 4″ x 18.5″ waist band for this little skirt and got to work on my serger. I love figuring out how pieces are put together. The longer I sew, the more curious I am about how pieces are constructed. I stitched this cutie together by simply looking at the original Old Navy skirt I mentioned and constructing it just like that one.

On to skirt #3!

My Isla specifically asked for a twirly skirt, SO I whipped out my circle skirt pattern that again I created by simply tracing around a skirt she already owns. When tracing around a circle skirt, you will fold the skirt in half and then into quarters and place the paper/tracing material on the fold. You will cut on the fold of the fabric and cut out two identical pieces.

I measured my daughter’s waist and cut out a 4″ x waist circumference, waist band. Once again I threw it together using my serger and finished it off using a 1″ hem at the bottom and a double needle to top stitch for a less homemade looking finish.

Ta-da!!