I experimented with this design quite a bit because I knew I wanted it to be worked vertically to achieve the design I had in my head, but honestly, I’m not a huge fan of the work-flat-and-sew-to-cinch method. I’ve used it in a handful of my patterns because it’s the only way I knew how to achieve the vertical design, but sometimes I feel like I can’t close the top securely enough and the cinch often looks a bit unbalanced. So after some thinking, I thought up another method (which I’m sure has been done before by others) to combine my favorite top-down method with a vertical design and I’m really happy with how it turned out. It’s a little confusing to explain, but I’ve made a video tutorial for this pattern in case you need a little help!