Ok, so why cauliflower? Well I’ve been making cauliflower and leek soup. I’ve been battered by recurrent colds for the last couple of months and have gone a massive fruit and veg binge! So my whole house smelled like cauliflower while I pieced together this skirt. Hence, the Cauliflower Skirt!
I read a post a few weeks ago at A Fashionable Stitch called The Everyday Wardrobe. In a nut shell, it’s about turning those Never Worn Garments (NWGs) into Everyday Wardrobe Garments (EWGs). Which got me to thinking of all of the stuff in my wardrobe that I very rarely wear. So I had a little looksy and I found these:
They’re really unflattering and they creep down my behind when I sit. The shape is just all wrong. They were just bunched up at the back of one of my shelves, hence the wrinkles!
Winter is coming (pfft, I don’t read Game of Thrones!) – and I’m a skirt, tights and boots (+ appropriate upper garments!) type of gal…so I set about making a nice skirt.
The first thing I did was stand in front of the mirror with my pants and worked out what length I wanted my skirt to be and marked this with a pin. Then I took a few inches off that measurement, knowing I wanted to add a band at the bottom. I pinned just under the waistband, making sure that the front and back were aligned (pink pins). Then it was cutting time!
Then it was seam ripping time! I unpicked the seams between the legs all of the way and the front and back seams I had to unpick until the curve stopped. I’ll show you what I mean:
Should look like this:
Alrighty. I folded the skirt in half at the centre front and back, matching the two side seams in the middle. These I pinned.
That was to keep things even when I sewed the new centre front and back seams. This is where I sewed:
…and then turned out the right way it looks like a mini skirt!
Then I made the band for the bottom from one of the trouser legs. I cut two large rectangles and put them right sides together to sew, thus forming a loop. I wanted the width of this to be less than my skirt and reduce the difference using gathers. I had to be careful here, if I made the band too narrow I wouldn’t be able to walk or it would ride up if I did manage! So I took a few steps down my hallway (walking normally), stopped and measured how far apart my legs would be at the desired skirt length. Make sense?
This is the band, sewn at the sides.
Then doubled over and pressed it looked like this
Now, because the band is much narrower than the skirt…
…I had to do some gathering. This I achieved by sewing long gathering stitches and pulling the bobbin threads until the side seams on both the skirt and band matched up.
Then it was just a matter of evening out the gathers, throwing in a few pins and sewing the thing on!
That’s it! Only took a few hours – in between attending to children and cooking my soup – and was quite a simple project.
Good job!
Thank you!
Wow, I’d never have guessed that skirt used to be a pair of trousers! I’m going to have to try this 🙂
I like refashions where you can’t tell what the original garment was 🙂
Very creative and a nice result!
Thank you 🙂
Very cute..I love your refashions! I would’ve never figured out how to do this one though..thanks!
Have a go, I found this to be one of the easier projects I’ve done. I think it helped that the fabric was really easy to work with, compared to denim or something weighty.
I’ve just been looking at some of your great refashions! Love your blog!
I would love if you came and linked some of your projects to my clothes upcycling project page. It has a long term linky, so your project would stay there for more than just the week of a usual linky. We have over 450 projects linked up now – some fantastic ideas.
Do come and take a look!
http://jembellish.blogspot.com/p/clothes-upcycling-projects.html
Thank you, I will have a look 🙂
What a fantastic way of refashioning a pair of trousers. I would like to add it to a Pinterest board for Skirt refashions I am making for a Refashion Co-op round-ip. Would this be OK?
Eddie
Eddie’s Room on Facebook come over for some crafty ideas and conversation.
Thank you 🙂 Yes you may Pin it!
What fun!