Just the 4 of us: Yoga Top Skirt

I'm really excited to share this fun skirt I designed and made. Inspiration came from HERE and HERE. It is super easy to make, and has a fold down knit top (made from a t shirt) so it's really comfortable too. Kind of like a pair of yoga pants. This skirt took me about an hour to make. (Not including the petals those took about an hour as well). I used an old t shirt and a rectangle of fabric that measured 18 inches by 36 inches.
First measure your hips, or where you want your skirt to sit. I like mine on my hips so that is where I measured. Then take that number and divide it in half and that's how much t shirt to cut. Because the T shirt is double fabric.
So for example my hip measurement was 35 inches, then divided in half is 17.5 So I measured 17.5 inches long and then 11 inches tall. I wanted the finished height of the waist band to be 10 inches (5 folded down) so I cut the fabric at 11 inches to allow 1 inch for seam allowance.
This picture below is the shirt, you will cut through both front and back of shirt. So the 17.5 measurement will go from left to right and the 11 inches is from top to bottom (in the photo below)

Here is the cut waist band, from a tee shirt. The fold is on the left and cut end is on right.

You will then turn the fabric right sides together and sew the short (11inch) side together with a zigzag stitch. The zig zag is to allow the fabric to stretch. Then turn the fabric so wrong sides are together and the waist band is folded in half (so that it measures 5 inches) and raw edges are together.

To figure out how long I wanted the skirt, I just measured a skirt that I like the length on.

It measured 21 inches long so I will add 2 inches to that. 1 inch for the top and 1 inch for the hem. So 23 inches. Or you could just measure from your hips to where ever you wanted the skirt to fall.

I then laid the rectangle of fabric below the waist band and measured the 23 inches. Sorry the photo doesn't show the 23inches. Then I marked and cut the fabric.

Here's how it looked after being cut.

Then I sewed a 1/2 inch seam along the top of the fabric (to gather it so it fits the waistband.) It's not sewing anything together, it's just for gathering. I used the longest stitch on my machine.

Then take one of the threads and pull it so it gathers the material, until it reaches your waistband measurement which for me was 35 inches.

I don't have a picture for the next step, but you are going to sew the rectangle fabric together on the short side.

Now your going to slide the waistband around the top of the skirt. How it's shown below. The waist band will slide straight down and around the green part.

All the raw edges will be at the top. (Well in this case since it was from a t- shirt, the bottom hem is still on so that is why there is sewing and serging shown in the picture.)

Make sure the waistband seam and skirt seam match

All the raw edges will be at the top and together.

Here's how it looks with waist band slide over the skirt.

Sew together and serge or zig zag the edge. I used about a 5/8 seam allowance.

Fold up the waist band and then hem the bottom of the skirt and your done.

I cut out some shapes, mostly circles and half circles, from the same t shirt that I made the waist band from and sewed them onto my skirt inkind of flower patterns.

Oh and I was totally going to crop these photos so the swing set was not in them. Oh well.