My sister recently saw some Ellie and Mac cut files that I had made and asked me to make some for my niece and nephew to which I said, “OF COURSE…and I’ll make some bottoms to go with them so they have a complete outfit.” That being said, I knew that I wanted to make a skirt for my niece because she is all things twirly, and it was going to have to be in her current favorite color…pink. I have schloads of pink woven fabric but not a lot in the knit category, which I will be fixing very soon! So, it was off to the drawing board to find something that would be simple but twirly. I knew from past conversations that she loves the Be Unstoppable dress, but I was really looking for a skirt so I decided to take just the skirt part of the pattern and make a standalone skirt using the dress pattern. It was actually a pretty simple hack.
I used the skirt piece and the waistband sash piece for this hack. I cut the skirt piece on the double fold so that there was a complete circle. You could absolutely still cut two separate pieces and sew them together, but I opted for a single circle. I also cut one waist band sash piece as drafted and a second piece that was 3” longer for the back waistband (added 1 ½” to the pattern piece).
I then sewed the waistband pieces together, placing a pin in the back piece so that I knew which one was the back. I sewed two lines of gathering stitches in the skirt, one set around the front and one set around the back. This is completely a personal preference, but I feel it makes it easier for me to gather when I’m doing one for the front and one for the back.
I folded the waistband in half, wrong sides together, and sewed two casings in the back waistband. The first one was 1” down from the top, and the second was 1” from the sewn line. With the waistband inside the skirt, and the skirt piece wrong side out, I lined the sides of the waistband up with the sides of the skirt and gathered to the lengths of each waistband. Using a ½” seam allowance, I sewed the waistband onto the skirt, leaving a 1” opening on each waistband side seam. This is where you will feed the elastics into the casings you sewed on the back waistband. For this skirt, I made the elastics 9”. My niece is in a 3, and the front waistband measured 10 inches. The 9” elastic gave me about 18” in the waist when for the finished skirt. I stitched in the ditch on the elastics to keep them from slipping back through the casings and then closed the openings. 
I finished off the raw edge on the waistband by serging, but you can opt to finish the raw edge whatever way you prefer. I also didn’t hem the bottom of the skirt…I just serged the bottom of the skirt as well…so I took a little extra off the bottom to account for that and left it with the serged edge showing. I paired it with a pink tee that I pressed with an EAM cut file, and I’m super excited about her new little outfit! 
(Written by: Kimberly McQueen)
