The adventures of a 50 cent skirt

I really want to just start singing a song about this skirt to the tune of The Brady Bunch theme song. Here's a story, of a lovely skirt, who was bringing up...well, you get the idea. Anyway, I bought this skirt for 50cents at a garage sale. It's a fully lined Banana Republic wool skirt that I couldn't pass up for that price. It was a few sizes too big for me, and super long, and really, what was I going to wear it to? So, I started to think of some things to do with it. I thought that it might be the perfect length to change into a strapless dress for Easter, so I set to work.

I folded the top over about a half an inch, put in 1/4" elastic and sewed it inside.
That seemed to work for the top, but it was a straight skirt afterall and lacked some form, so I added a few darts in the front to pull the sides in a bit.


Again, all seemed well and I was quite pleased with myself. Then I put it on again, and realized that the edges could use some taking in, so I made some chalk lines and took the dress in to make it more form fitting. MISTAKE! I got the dress on, but literally had to seam rip myself out of it! It was TOO tight. And really, even though I took the sides in, it still seemed to lack shape, so I went to plan B.

Plan B was to cut the skirt in two pieces making an empire type waist at the top. I gathered the bottom of the skirt to take that in a bit and see if that would help.




Nope. It ended up being totally shapeless. I am sure I could have done something differently when I put the two pieces together again to give it more shape, but at that point, I was finished coming up with ideas. So I put the dress aside until I could think about what to do with it.





Then, at Easter, I was talking to my cousin and she mentioned making a paper bag waist skirt. It didn't cross my radar at the time, but I realized today that maybe I could try my hand at making one with the mess of a dress that I had on my hands. So I did some searching for some ideas and found this . I had everything on hand so I set to work.




I turned the dress inside out and cut the two pieces together leaving as much fabric as I could to work with. Then I turned the top down about 2 1/2-3 inches and pressed and pinned it in place. I then measured my elastic on my natural waist (not pulling too tightly), and pinned that at the bottom of the 2 1/2 inch mark. I sewed around holding the elastic tight and gathering the material underneath it. I sewed on the top edge and bottom edge of the elastic.



And this is what I came up with.


I realized I should have taken these pictures in black and white because my legs are so white you are probably blinded right now!




That's it! Next time, I think I will make the skirt about two inches longer. It's a little too short for this mom of three! What do you think? What are your worst sewing OOPs?





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11 comments

Alyssa said...

I do a lot of trial and error type sewing with no real patterns, so I've had several things not work out as planned. Sometimes they turn out great, but other times, not so much. Thanks for sharing this whole process. It's nice to know that others don't have things turn out as planned every time also!

Jen @ lil Mop Top said...

I have a knitting oops I put on my blog. Still cracks me up when I look at the pic!

http://lilmoptop.blogspot.com/2010/03/trial-and-error.html

(and I think the top of your skirt turned out super cute!)

CraftCrave said...

Just a quick note to let you know that a link to this post will be placed on CraftCrave today [07 Apr 02:00pm GMT]. Thanks, Maria

Carol said...

What a great skirt, good job!
I love your blog, I've had fun poking around!
I'm following you now.
Stop by and visit me sometime!
http://songberries.blogspot.com

Jen said...

Thanks for sharing this adventure...helps to know I am not the only one who has to keep re-doing things/fix sewing bad ideas. Cute skirt.

Kelley said...

That is so cute... I love what you did to it.
Figuring out is half the fun.

Have a great day..

Ashley said...

Great job! Maybe pair it with a cute pair of leggings and you won't have to worry about the shortness?

Rachelle said...

Great job! Thanks for sharing!

xo

Rachelle

Carolyn @ My Backyard Eden said...

I really like it! You did a great job!

Thanks for linking up to Make it Yours Day!

Stacey said...

I think sewing can totally be a trial and error thing! I like the paper bag look to it. I kind of want to try that technique now. Very cute! Thanks for sharing at 'Look at me, I'm SO Crafty!' at Fun to Craft!

Erika Mulvenna said...

Wow - what a life that skirt has had! I just had a sewing "oooops" when I sewed a t-shirt together then realized I sewed the neckband on inside out! D'oh!

Speaking of projects, I am working with the www.WeAllSew.com projec, linking sewers with projects, charities that need sewing help, and other sewers. Check it out!

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