Denim Skirt

Time to Complete: 45 mins
Sewing Machine Required? Yes
Difficulty: Difficult

Until about grade ten, I was known for wearing ill-fitting jeans and department store fleece zip-ups. I blame having attended an independent elementary school with a dress code for not learning how to dress myself before then. One of my first "cool" pieces of clothing was a denim skirt that I absolutely loved--and have long since outgrown.

But when I saw this denim shirt, I immediately thought "skirt!"

Eek.

This was a pretty common look a few decades ago, so these sorts of square, embroidered denim shirts are easy to find in second-hand stores. They don't have much staying power as shirts, but the very shapelessness that makes them unpleasant tops is perfect for turning them into skirts!

I pulled the skirt up to my waist and buttoned it up as far as I could. This gave me an idea of how the final skirt would fit.

Already getting better...

Now I chopped off the top of the shirt, just below the sleeves.

I was sad to lose one of the flowers in the chop.

This left just the tricky process of shaping the skirt, during which I apparently took only one picture.

Bear with me...

Ok, so what I did here was pull the skirt up to where I wanted it to sit, then I pinched in the sides and pinned each one, doing my best to keep it equal. Since the skirt would button up the front, I could make it perfectly fitted and know that I'd still be about to get in and out of it. 

Then I sewed on an angle from each pinned point to the bottom hem of the skirt (sorry, no pictures!). I tried it on again and had to go back and take it in just a touch more along each side. Finally, I folded over the top and stitched it down to finish the raw edge.

And here's the finished product!

Fun!

I will try to do another one of these with more pictures of the shaping process. It is easier to show than tell. Or come check out Refashion Without Rules at the Prince George Public Library on March 6th (more information here)!

Criticisms: I did end up needing to safety-pin the skirt closed between the top and second buttons, since it was gaping a little. A proper fix would be to add a button hole and stitch on a new button to close the gap--but on this blog I'm all about getting away with the easy fix wherever I can, and nobody can see the safety pin!