Hey, everyone! This is Allison. I'm Michelle's oldest daughter. I usually blog on my own blog, "Be All There", but my mom asked me if I wanted to do some guest posts for her, so here I am!
Recently, it's been
really hot around here, so we've been staying inside with our air conditioning pretty much all day. Although I'm more of a cooler temps person, I have to admit the one good thing about the hot weather is you remember all the little projects and things you never have time for when you're busy going places and doing stuff. But hey, it's summer and I'm stuck inside anyway, so why not refashion a skirt or curtains???
Which brings me to this skirt:
I bought this skirt a year or so ago at a thrift store because I absolutely loved the fabric. It's a Ralph Lauren skirt, probably from the 80's. It has a very pretty prairie (alliteration, for the win!) feel to it, and it is in excellent condition. The fabric also has great weight to it, so it lays really nicely.
However, despite the skirt's many perks, I never wore it.
After a while, it found a home in our fabric stash, waiting to be cut up and transformed.
I actually got the idea to re-fashion the skirt from a tutorial I saw on another blog. I was looking at this tutorial and I thought, "Wow, I really love those skirts... I should make one!". But, as fate would have it, while I was looking in our fabric for some new skirt material, I stumbled across the blue one... and realized it was almost the exact design of the skirt I was about to make. So I decided to just fix the things I didn't like about the blue one, and voila'!
I tried the blue skirt on, and noticed two issues:
No. 1: Those pockets. While I'm sure they would be extremely useful for berry picking or... something, I generally don't go berry picking, and they were at an awkward spot and were awkwardly huge. They stuck out at the hips, making my hips look bigger than necessary (-_-), and the tops of the pockets were in a constant battle for domination with the bottom of any shirt I might wear with the skirt. They needed to go.
No. 2: The skirt was an awkward length. I kept saying the skirt should either be longer (floor length) or shorter (knee length). But where it was, it just felt like a granny skirt. I actually realized later on that I wasn't the first to make length adjustments on this skirt... The bottom had obviously been shortened because it had bright purple thread and a slightly uneven hem. I wonder what the skirt looked like originally...
So, after diagnosing the issues, I got to work. I think I took a little more than three inches off the length, and of course I removed the pockets. I was really glad there wasn't any issue with the previously exposed part of the skirt being more faded than inside the pockets.
I wore my "new" skirt on Sunday... I love it! It doesn't look terribly different than the "before", but it's a little more modern and stylish, and it definitely lays better without the pockets.
This one will definitely be a staple in my closet!
♥
