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The Shapes of Fabric

4 Panel Skirt with Pockets

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I know I just posted a sewing project. But here’s another one! It’s a 4 panel skirt with pockets, as you might’ve guessed from the title..

Inspiration and Features

So this is another project from my #makenine -list. Here’s the picture of the original skirt I found on Pinterest:

It has a seam at the center front, pockets and a waistband with 2 buttons. I used all these features in my skirt, too.

However, my pockets have a different shape and the skirt is slightly less flared. It also seems that the waistband in the picture is made of a straight piece. I did a contoured waistband instead. There’s a zipper at the c.back.

This is actually the kind of skirt that could also be made by using the basic skirt pattern as a starting point, but I thought it would be nice to make a panel skirt for change.

As a material, I picked up a piece of cream colored wool. It was a bit heavier than I would’ve liked, but in the end worked quite well. I had 2 wooden buttons in my stash that were perfect for this project. Because the material wasn’t too soft, I decided to line the skirt.

The 4 Panel Skirt Pattern

The panel skirt pattern is pretty straight forward to draft. If you’re not too familiar with this type of pattern, here’s a tutorial.

The measurements needed:

  • waist circumference
  • hip circumference
  • distance between waist and hip
  • skirt length

And because this skirt has 4 panels, you need to divide the waist- and hip circumference by 4. It’s also a good idea to add 2cm / 0,79in of ease to the hip circumference, so the skirt will be more comfortable to wear.

Now you have all the numbers to draft the panel.

4 panel skirt pattern

The amount of flare I added is just an example, it’s what I used. You can adjust yours the way you want.

Next step is to correct the waist- and hemline like this:

So basically you want to make sure there’s a 90 degree angle at each corner of your panel.

You can also add a little bit of curve to the side seam between waist and hip. Unless of course your skirt is so flared that it doesn’t really matter.

Waistband and Pocket

Now that the panel is ready, we can separate the waistband, just like we did with the culottes. My skirt has a 5cm / 1,97in wide waistband.

Then there’s the front pocket starting right under the waistband.

This time I chose to do the pocket pattern in one piece. Meaning it will be made using the main fabric. To be able to make this kind of pocket pattern, the pocket bag can’t have a curved angle.

So instead of a seam, there’s just a fold between the large- and small pocket bag. Copy the large pocket bag first, turn your paper over and copy the small pocket bag so that you end up with just one pattern piece.

The waistband pattern is the same for both front and back. The only difference is that the front piece will be cut on fold and back piece separated, because of the zipper.

The Skirt Pattern Pieces

Copy the front- and back pattern pieces for the skirt. If you want to make a lining, you can use the same pattern for that, too. Just make the hemline a bit shorter. Naturally the lining won’t have a pocket, so the front- and back pieces will look identical.

Add seam allowances for all the pattern pieces if you prefer. Make a toile to check the fit and look. You can make the toile without pockets if you want to save time.

I didn’t mark the grainline, because you can either follow the c. front and -back, or the middle of each panel. The pocket should have the same grainline as the skirt and I recommend you place the pocket bag -fold so that it follows the grainline.

Sewing the Panel Skirt

As this is a simple skirt to sew, I won’t write much about the sewing part of the project.

But here are a couple of pictures of the pocket. You need to do this before you can sew the side seams of the skirt.

First I attached the pocket bag to the skirt by stitching the pieces right sides together at the pocket opening.

Then I flipped the pocket bag to the wrong side and pressed the seam, and the pocket bag fold. I stitched the horizontal seam of the pocket bag.

And finally sewed the pocket bag in place to it wouldn’t move when sewing the other seams. If you want to top stitch the pocket opening, do it before this.

I decided to top stitch all the seams with a contrasting color matching the buttons. This was also a convenient way to flatten the seams.

Here’s a detail of the pocket and waistband area.

panel skirt pocket detail

My 4 Panel Skirt

This will be my winter skirt. It’s pretty warm, being wool and all.

I’m not sure if I ever mentioned that posing for pictures is not my favorite thing to do, so as an antidote I’m now sharing this awkward sequence of me trying to look normal in a picture -and failing. (I’m quite sure I will regret this afterwards, but here we go.)

panel skirt sequence

And here’s one that was slightly better.

4 panel skirt
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18 Comments

    • shapesoffabric Reply

      I’m glad you find them useful. 🙂 Will be posting more of those.

    • shapesoffabric Reply

      Glad you find them useful. 🙂 You’re welcome!

  3. Basira Reply

    Lovely tutorial as always!…. I really cannot thank you enough for this tutorials. God bless you!

  4. Nishani Reply

    I am very interested in your sewing projects and the way you explain . thankyou very much

  5. Lois Konadu Adu Reply

    Very simple and great. Thanks madam. I love the tutorials. God bless you

  7. Sandy Reply

    You did such an awesome job of making a skirt pattern so easy. I was looking for a pocket pattern to add to a 6 gore skirt I am making and found this one. I plan to use your idea, but in a patch pocket style instead. I also like the idea of contrasting thread. Thank you so much!

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