Welcome back for day 5 of the sew along, you can catch up on day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4 anytime as well.
Today’s our last work day. We’ll be finishing the waistband and hemming!

Finish waistband:
Sew the remaining waistband facing pieces together just like you did the other waistband pieces. This time though you’ll want to finish the bottom curved edge of the waistband. Use a pinking shears, zig zag stitch, overlock stitch, or I even did a tiny rolled hem on my original skirt. There really isn’t a wrong way, do what feels right for you.
* A reader pointed out that I was using a 3/8″ seam allowance on these pieces and she’s correct. It’s my way of adjusting for a little bit larger fit, so it’s somewhere between a size 6 and 8. I wasn’t going to mention it, but on this pattern at least, you can make adjustment like that to the waistband and it doesn’t affect how the skirt attaches since it’s gathered. Hopefully that makes a little bit of sense. Okay, moving along…
Pin the waistband facing top edge to the top edge of the waistband on the skirt, making sure to align side seam of waistband with that of the waistband facing. The facing will extend past the back of the skirt on each side, that’s normal. Simplicity says to move the carriers (belt loops) out of the way so you can topstitch them later, but I chose to sew them into the seam. You don’t have to, it’s just the way I wanted to make it easier. So if you want to sew them into the seam, just sandwich them in between the waistband and waistband facing and pin them in place. Sew.
Next we’ll understitch the waistband facing so it doesn’t end up rolling to the outside of the skirt when you’re wearing it. Press the seam allowance up towards the facing and sew close to the seam.
Press the waistband facing to the inside of the skirt. Tuck in the back edges that are along the zipper so that there are no raw edges. You can finish them in by hand sewing like step 29 in the pattern, but I’m lazy and sewed them down with my machine, I just stitched along the stitch lines that were there from sewing in the zipper.
On the outside of the skirt stitch close to the waistband seam. That’s it for the waistband unless you chose to leave the belt loops out of the way, if so you’ll topstitch them in place now. You can also sew in the hook/eye, I skipped sewing mine in, but it’s up to you!
Hemming:
Okay, so if you’re ready to finish them hem, I would suggest trying the skirt on to see if you still like the length of the skirt. You’ll press the bottom edge to the WRONG side by 1/4″ then turn and press again and stitch close to the inner fold, just like in step 34. You can use a pretty long stitch length if you want.
I wanted to try something new for me, so I did a blind hem on both my skirts. It’s a little different, but a nice finish. You can follow the directions in your sewing machine’s manual, or there’s a great tutorial here.
You’re finished! Thanks for sewing along with me. If you want there’s already a Simplicity Patterns flickr group for you to add your photos to. I might also do a linky party possibly this weekend, but maybe next just so everyone has time to finish up. How does that sound? Let me know if you’d be interested in that.