Meet My New Skirt

It’s deliciously lightweight and twirly and eclectically printed…

…and it started out life as a dress, one of those “babydoll” numbers that’s a little too impractical for my current stage of my life.

I can’t take credit for this transformation idea – my friend Mo was shopping, found a bunch of dresses on clearance for $5, figured they were too cute to pass up but too short and sassy for a busy mama to wear, and then had a light bulb moment. Chop the straps off and fix up the waist a bit if needed. (Purple dress not cut yet; one dress AWOL.)

And being the good friend that she is, after showing me her windfall, she let me pick one out for myself. And let me have my favorite even though it was kinda her favorite too! And then insisted I not pay her…  but instead help her with the sewing on the ones she was keeping. : )

Here she is attaching her first waistband – we found a great striped fabric with all the right colors and even thin gold lines.… So pretty!

And alas, I was typing up directions, then realized half way through that I didn’t have photos of some of the next steps.

And I can’t post a how-to without photos.

So it’ll have to wait til Mo’s over here again to finish her skirt…

But that’s perfect since it gives you time to go browse your local clearance racks/thrift store/op shop/etc and find a cheap and fun but way too short shirred dress.

Other things you’ll need are some elastic (we used 1” wide non-roll stuff), long enough to go around your waist, and a strip of fabric for the inside waistband, long enough to go around your hips plus a few inches. And a sewing machine helps. And matching thread, etc.