Two and a Half

Updating on my five-skirts pledge, I'm at the halfway point. I should have warned you that these were not going to be dramatic refashions--I didn't turn a skirt into a swimsuit or anything.

No, wait! I am not going to apologize! People do that on Wardrobe Refashion all the time, and I hate it. They apologize because their refashion isn't DYNAMIC enough or seems like it's too easy. Well, the idea of Wardrobe Refashion is to "refashion, renovate, [and] recycle preloved items." That's what I'm doing. These were three thrift store skirts that were too big for me. I changed them from useless to useful!

I started with the pink and grey skirt from my pledge post. When I'm going to resize a skirt, I start by considering a few things:

Is there a zipper? If there is, I'm going to work around it.

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Where is the zipper? If it's on a side seam, I'm probably going to take the skirt in on the opposite side. If it's in the back, I'm going to take the skirt in from either side, so the zip remains centered.

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If the zipper is on a side seam, will taking the skirt in on the opposite side throw off any details like darts, pleats, etc? If you're only taking it in by an inch or less, it probably won't be noticeable. If it needs to be taken in more, you might want to come up with a different plan.

This skirt has one pleat in the front and three in the back, but I only took it in about an inch, and there is a LOT of fullness, so I went with the plan to take it in on the side opposite the zipper. If anyone notices that my pleats aren't perfectly centered, they are paying way too much attention to my backside!

Now, I confess, I used to do this by sewing a new seam straight up the side, right over the hem and facing. It got the job done, sort of, but it wasn't too neat. Now I carefully open up the hem, disassemble the facing in some cases, sew up the side, and then put everything back the way it started.

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See how nice and neat that looks? I would have been finished, but I decided to redo the hem as well. The tape they used was disintegrating, so I ripped that out and will replace it with this pretty, lilac lace.

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(This is where the "and a half" comes in. I haven't sewn the hem yet. That's for tonight, while watching tv.)

The brown skirt had a center zipper, so I took this one in from either side. To begin, off with the waistband! Each side came in three quarters of an inch and then...

...back on with the waistband! Sometimes these narrow little waistbands are hard to remove and end up pretty mangled. Not a problem, just replace it with double fold bias tape.

The last skirt of the three is just another with a side zipper. I fretted about the sections being unequal when I finished, but then I realized with a print like this, who would ever know?

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Can you tell? Nah, I didn't think so.

So! That's three (two and a half) of the five. Number four is started, but I need thread, and number five is a mystery, because I'm not sure which of the other skirts I want to tackle. I'm kicking around a few ideas, though, so be sure to check back!