skirt convert

Another skirt made from some former trousers.

These ones were staple work pants for a while, and then went all round India and Europe with me. And then, don’t know why, I stopped wearing them.

Using the same technique as here (pdf), I turned it into a skirt – a little shorter this time round.

It’s been a staple this summer – as easy to wear as shorts but more flattering (shorts and I have a troubled relationship).

mojo rising?

My sewing mojo has been missing in action for some time.  Seems like I’m always too tired, too busy, not bothered enough.  Seems like I have too many clothes. Too many clothes and at the same time, not enough.  For instance I have only two skirts to wear to work in the summer time and one of them needs to be held up with pins.

Last weekend I coaxed the sewing mojo out, and gently convinced it that maybe we could work together and make something.  Nothing too hard.  Nothing too complex.  Just another skirt to augment the work wardrobe for summer.

I started here.  This dress was the first thing I bought after six months of wardrobe refashion.  It was fabulous, it’s a cool cotton-linen mix, and I wore it out to cocktails at Madam Fling Flong‘s and felt well glam in it.

It shrank two inches vertically on the first wash.  I was no longer the cutest thing on King St, rather all of King St could see all of me every time I bent over.

So I chopped it off and made a skirt, for summer.  Keeping the big pockets (big enough for a night out without a handbag), pulling the side seams in, adding a zip and some belt loops.

It’s fitting that the first thing I bought after Wardrobe Refashion should end up refashioned itself.  As for the sewing mojo, it was exhausted afterwards, but in such a way that suggests it will replenish itself soon.

 

 

a tribute to those who clothed me

I have many things in progress at the moment and nothing finished to show off.  So this post is a bit of a cop-out.

My father recently sent me a cd with scans of many old family pictures.  Because he always took slides rather than photos, I’d never seen many of these pictures before despite starring in them.  One thing that struck me about them was how many of my clothes had been home made, either by my mother or by another relative.  Many of them are made out of scraps or leftovers from other clothes my mother had made herself, or in some cases are cut down from worn out clothes. I’m impressed with how resourceful my mother was, and how skillful all these women were, as sewers and knitters.

Here are a few pictures – if you click on each you can read a description.

the pant-skirt

These wide-legged pants have always been a little too short in the leg and the crotch. I put up with this till they stopped fitting me round the hips, and then they languished in the cupboard waiting for dramatic weight loss that never happened and the crotch-lengthening fairy who never came.

On Sunday night I had an inspiration:

• unpick the inner leg seams (5 minutes)
• sew the front and back together ( 5 minutes)
• chop off length and trim seams (1 minute)
• fiddle with hem to get the length right (30 minutes, because it’s amazing how an extra half inch of hem translate to legs that look a half kilo slimmer)
• make a slit in the back (10 minutes), and ta-da!

:: a new skirt!

The pants bequeathed all those nice details that can be hell to sew, like pockets and a fly and belt loops. I wore it to work twice this week – I should have done this years ago.

:: update

I did a little tutorial on this project, which you can find by clicking on ‘patterns’ above.

tunic

I bought this dress at Vinnies, for $3, and it split up the back the first time I sat down in it. Yet another hint from the universe to try things on before buying.

It’s a beautiful linen and fully lined. Too good to chuck out.

So I chopped it off to make a tunic top. I used a bit of the skirt to make facings for the vents at the side.

I made those pants too, about 3 years ago, but for the last 2 years they’ve been languishing in the too small pile. I finally got around letting out the darts and side seams which took all of half an hour. How many clothes are lying about unworn because no-one has half an hour to adjust them? Feeling very virtuous after that, I also mended the zip on a favourite dress, which has been split for, oh, about 18 months. That took 5 minutes.