What? Sewing tutorial from me? Well, yes, I thought I would give it a try and we will see how it goes. :)
I really like thrift stores and I have often praised the ones in Sweden, there are lots of lovely things in the so called "loppis" shops. Unfortunately, used clothes are quite rare, and in the charity shops they are not too cheap. At least not if you still have to do some work with them so that you can wear them.
Anyway, last Saturday I managed to buy a skirt for only 10 crowns (about 1,20 Euros or 1,50 dollars). I loved the fabric and thought if I can't use it as a skirt I can always cut it up for quilting.
The skirt was way too small at the waist, but then I found a way to sort things out. And it took me about half an hour.
(Just in brackets: I love the many thrifting-recycling-refashioning blogs out there. But most of them follow the same pattern: buy something for the fabric, something that is too big for you and make it
smaller. I however find it difficult to buy things that are too big for me.)
I have tried to make a pun once, when I upcycled my old cardigan, and I will repeat it again, perhaps someone will like it this time: up-cycle can mean UP a size :D. So here is how to make a skirt, that is too small for you,
bigger.
The skirt needs to be long enough, and flaring out at the bottom. That means if you cut off the top part, it should still be a good length, but the new topline will be much wider.
Here is the skirt I bought:
It had a line of buttons on the front. I tried the skirt on and checked where is the point where I could button it up. It was at 18 cms from the waistline.
I don't like a skirt that buttons all the way, I have had a few uncomfortable incidents with buttons opening in critical places. So I decided to cut them off.
Then I marked 18 cms from the waistline all around the top of the skirt. Like this - there is very faint blue line starting at the 4th button. I cut off the top part along that line.
Then I cut off the buttons and sewed the front together, hiding the buttonholes. Sorry, forgot to take a picture of this phase.
Then folded over about 5 cms on the top, ironed it down, and took it to the sewing machine. Folded under about 1 cm, and sewed a line all around. I feel like I am not very good at explaining this, I hope the photos will help. I didn't pin much, just in a few places to keep the side seams together - since the part I folded down was a bit narrower than the part where I folded it down - so I had to do a bit of easing.
I left a little opening where I pulled in a piece of elastic. Then I sewed together the ends, tried the skirt on, then cut the elastic, cut off about 8 cms and sewed it again. Every time I cut elastic, I measure it around my waist, cut it a bit smaller - and it always turns out too lose.
Anyway, my skirt was almost done. I just had to sew back the buttons, only for decoration, so I decided to go lazy and only sewed back every other button :). And here is the end result:
It is still long enough to reach a bit under my knees. I am actually very proud of myself. :)
I am hoping to wear it tomorrow, will try and have a photo taken in it.
All this has just happened and I sat down to write a blog post about it quickly, but I know I promised some other updates.
Let me just
boast say that I have finished my Swedish course, and got a B as a final grade which I am really happy with. But I am still so very tired from all that really intensive work.
There is some cross stitch I did but not much, and I also started quilting my first quilt, made some mistakes, and now it is waiting for some unpicking... I will be back with some photos soon.
