Have you ever looked at an old skirt and thought – ‘perhaps you were destined to be a top’? Well that’s not exactly what I did, but I did have second thoughts when I was about to throw out one of my skirts (which still had an ‘age’ label rather than a ‘size’…). Creating something from scratch is one thing, but I think the prospect of turning one piece of clothing into another unique item is often more exciting.
In this particular case, this rather short chequered skirt had a lot of material hidden away in the folds, so I knew I had plenty to work with. Of course, like with so many sewing projects, my initial ideas did not come to fruition as I struggled to create the perfect image in my head. But I followed through with what I was creating, and love the result!
In an ideal world, I would have a dress form to work with, but I went with the budget method and began pinning the material this way and that to a stretchy T-Shirt I was wearing. Similar to my previous summer bodice (check out my previous post!), I found it easier to go for an open back, so created a very simple front piece, using the original waistband but the other way up.
With the sizeable pieces of extra fabric, I chose to incorporate some fluted sleeves. But this idea didn’t get very far, as I struggled to find a simple way to keep the top staying up! So I instead chose to simply pin the fabric to the top of the front side and over and down to the waistband at the back, creating a very effective back design.
After much adjusting and fiddling, I finished off by sewing a small pocket onto the front – partly to give it an even more cutesy look, but also cover a rather sizeable faint stain…
So what do you think? Original skirt or quirky new top? I much prefer the latter!
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