Success! I carved a beautiful skirt out of another old pair of Jack's work pants. This particular pair was a clay-brown dickies work pant that had blown out along the upper inside seam of the left leg and were thus rendered useless... except to me! >:)
I tried to actually take pictures while I worked on the skirt, but I forgot. Then I remembered and took this shot after I cut the legs off and splayed them open (above and below the blow-out, hence the four pieces instead of two). Then I forgot to take any work-in-progress photos until I had finished the skirt entirely. ;) Oh well. Basically, I sewed the two larger pieces together and used strips cut from the two smaller pieces to do an extra edging on the "petal" edges and for a waistband. Finally, I wrapped it around my waist and figured out the best locations for snaps, and voila!
So: here's the finished product! Note: all full-length photos were taken in the mirror, so they're backwards.
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| That little duck tailing in the back (for lack of a better term) comes from the flare built into the pant legs. I could've trimmed more square, but I like to keep it that way - it adds a little more shape to the finished product that way. |
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| The "tulip" name comes from the petal-like effect in the front. |
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| Close-up, you can see that I did all the surface stitching in bright red! |
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| I nabbed a few western snaps from Jack's craft supplies. :) |
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| Super cute! |
I have to say that I am VERY pleased with how this skirt turned out in the end - it was so simple to make (especially now that I've got that sewing machine at my disposal - thanks Amanda!) and the material being well-broken-in really got to shine in this cute, feminine, skirt with a little bit of western flare... definitely a new favorite in my wardrobe.
Nothing like a sewing success to uplift the week. I've definitely been up and down this week - I miss Jack terribly, but I've managed to keep relatively busy. Some days I've been more depressed and unmotivated than others. But little bits of sunshine in my currently lonely life, like creating a skirt, hosting an awesome couchsurfer, the occasional phone call from Jack, skating my butt off at roller derby practice (I skated the 100-lap warm-up with the girls on Thursday in 18 minutes and some change! It kicked my butt for the rest of the night, and I did take a couple falls so I didn't do exactly 100 laps, but I was actually able to hang on for almost all of it this time, so that was exciting!), and agate hunting at the beach with friends, definitely help me feel more awesome about my life.
On Monday I start work, and I know that'll be a huge time-suck in my day, so I think once that's underway I'll probably be plenty busy to make the days go by quickly. In short, I think I'm gonna make it this summer. I look forward to October, though, and that paper chain on my living room wall gets a little smaller every day. :)
Until next time!
I tried to actually take pictures while I worked on the skirt, but I forgot. Then I remembered and took this shot after I cut the legs off and splayed them open (above and below the blow-out, hence the four pieces instead of two). Then I forgot to take any work-in-progress photos until I had finished the skirt entirely. ;) Oh well. Basically, I sewed the two larger pieces together and used strips cut from the two smaller pieces to do an extra edging on the "petal" edges and for a waistband. Finally, I wrapped it around my waist and figured out the best locations for snaps, and voila!