First garment for the year!The credit for the cute pocket and the funky piecing and top-stitching goes to Mum of course ;) Yes, remember this Vogue 8561 skirt that she made, and passed on to me because she didn’t like it? Unfortunately that particular combo of pattern and fabric was kinda unforgivably frumpy. I think the older you get, the far less you can get away with anything remotely frumpy. When she saw it on me even Mum said “oh just toss it out Carolyn, it does nothing for you either”
But it was of lovely, new fabric; slightly stretchy denim from KnitWit? I think? and waaaaay too nice to ditch so hastily; and I liked the idea of a little blue denim skirt in my wardrobe. Key word there: “little”. And blue denim; always a favourite!
So the unfrumpy Vogue 1247 came to the rescue… I spliced the upper and lower skirt pattern pieces together and managed to cut a front and back from the very lowest portion of the skirt, keeping most of the original hemline intact.
Interesting, huh? that the hemline circumference of that long long original is almost exactly the same as it is in this much much shorter skirt. Explains a lot, in retrospect it was pretty constrictive and difficult to stride briskly along in.... and I'm a strider.
I cut out that adorable little pocket from the top and re-attached it to the skirt; because imo it was the hands-down highlight of the original skirt and I just had to keep it! The original dress zip was unpicked and re-used in the CB seam, and I found a piece of non-stretchy denim in my stash with a wrong side having an excellent colour match, leftover from a skirt Cassie had made for herself. From this, I cut a new waistband, and to reduce bulk and avoid that quintuple layer of fabric you get in the joining seam of a traditional waistband, I edged the inside raw facing edge with pale blue bias binding (leftovers from this shirt) and stitched them together in-the-ditch. I re-used the same heavy-duty hook and eye closure.
Voila! I think this is a far more flattering and usable skirt in our climate, and there is no doubt it is going to get a heck of a lot more wear now!
Details:
Skirt; a refashion of a Vogue 8561 denim skirt, using a modified version of Vogue 1247, my review of this pattern here
Top; the top portion of a dress from Pattern Magic 3 by Tomoko Nakamichi, of white cotton jersey, details here
Thongs; Havaiana
