Pant-skirt and Horrid Dress

Right-ee-o - here are the pants. 50% linen, 50% cotton. I bought them when I lived in Italy 8 years ago and in Italy, red pants are great. (Also, for my body-shape 8 yrs ago, these were great). On PEI, Canada, not so much the right style - they just weren't working for me here.

So I put them in the charity bin. Then I started thinking that I really liked the look of the belt (three strings with the wooden loop, you just pull them through and knot them). And that I always thought of my fun time in Italy (I was an Au Pair there, the equivalent of a short-term nanny).

So I decided to keep them and turn them into a skirt!

Out came the seam ripper! They were serged, so it was quite a lot of work opening up the inside leg seams. I had an audiobook running in the background and that made it more fun.


No turning back now :) I cut of the pants below the knees, opened up the side seams on those pieces and cut triangles, which I then sewed back into the front and back opening of the pants. I used two more triangles and sewed them into the outside side seams of the upper pant part (more seam-ripping!). And because I like my skirts swirly, I then used those pieces left over from cutting triangles out of the bottom of the pant legs and pasted them in the front left and right and the back left and right. Then it was time to hem the skirt (with all the folds, I didn't have to worry much about everything being straight, phew) and to zigzag along the seams, tada!

It's so nice not to have to worry about the waistline and a zipper, those are my least favourite part of making skirts, generally.


The day I started was a beautiful sunny day here, and I must have felt like summer ;) (in fact, the sun beating into my living/sewing room was so warm that I kept having to take of layers!). Now that it's -28C with the windchill and my skirt is ready, I'm really *REALLY* craving summer :) Soon. Only about 5 more months in this part of the world... sigh.


Now for the dress: you'll probably all say it looks fine etc, but trust me, I have photos of me wearing it, and it's aweful. It makes me look like Miss Frumpy and soooo plump, which I like to think I'm not. It's about the most unflattering thing I've put on my body in a while! And there's no way I'll put those photos of me in the dress on the web - they might be used against me at some point in the future, hahaha!


Here's the big problem: the ruffles in the skirt didn't quite work out, they're not spread out evenly, so I have very unflattering bulk over my hips (which I'm generally NOT trying to emphasize) and over my butt, which also doesn't need *any* more bulk, believe you me!

So let's just forget about that little failed experiment (unfortunately -or fortunately?- it's polyester, so I won't be making a quilt out of this despite Nanci's great suggestion that every failed dress is a quilt waiting to happen :), and instead, I'll enjoy my cheerful red skirt....


How come a red skirt is okay but red pants are weird??? I must have a strange view of clothing ;)