DIY off-shoulder top and flare skirt

I love flare skirts for the ease of wearing as well as the ease of making them. I saw this pop of colours and said it would do so well with a plaited skirt as some will call it or a flared skirt.

A flared skirt without a top to go with it limits the ease of wearing it.
So I threw in the making of a fitted top in the mix and voila a complete outfit for a fun and play-filled day came to be.

These are the instruments I used in making both the fitted top and a flared skirt.

1. A ruler
2. A curve ruler
3. Chalk
4. Writing materials (A writing pad and a pencil/ ballpoint pen or a marker)
5. Measuring Tape
6. Scissors
7. A scripted measurement of a size 14 lady

To cut out the circumference of the skirt opening, we need to measure around the waist for a stretchy fabric that can pass over the hip, since the hip is wider than the waist.
For a non-stretchy fabric like the one I used to make this skirt, using the measurement of the round bust or hips will suffice.
If you are wearing the skirt from the top down or feet up. I had enough fabric so I used the widest part of the body being the hip in this situation.

After calculating I added a radius of 7 inches to the length of the skirt which was 26 inches and a sewing allowance of 1.5 inches totalling 34.5 inches minus 2 inches for the waistband, leaving us with 32.5 inches as the new length.

I measured the new length of 32.5 inches from the folded fabric with a pointy edge.
When I was sure the fabric was levelled on all points to be the length required I measured the 7 inches radius as seen in the picture below.

Then I cut it all around as seen.

Then I measured the remaining required length of 25.5 inches.

Here is the cutout of the measured length.

Here it is after being weaved at the edges.

Then I cut out the waistband of 22.5 inches on fold, totalling 45 inches in width and 5 inches in breadth.

The elastic band measured at 24.5 inches.

Here is the close-up view of the band.

I sewed the waistband by the edge.

Then folded it to overlap each other with an opening for a band. Since the band was just an inch wide. I sewed over the unopened area by half an inch all around.

Then opening it up I placed the band inside and sewed it to seal the elastic within the waistband fabric.

Till it looked something like this…


I attached the weaved angles of both the band and the skirt by sewing them together by half an inch as seen below.

Then I sewed the bottom part of the skirt around by just folding it by half an inch.

Then cutting using a 30 by 22 inches black fabric I cut out the top as seen below.

The back and front view of the cutout top.

Here is the link to a video of a detailed illustration of how to make an off-shoulder top and a flared skirt:

After weaving and sewing all the cut-out parts. Here is the final result;

Voila!🤩

®️Whitney Alexander