Thursday, May 08, 2014

My 50th refashion post - a leather skirt

First of all, thanks to Refashion Co-op for existing! I could never keep up with a blog of my own, so I am delighted to have a place to share all my refashions. And this marks my 50th post! Yay me!

For this one, I have a long black leather skirt I picked up at a thrift store around Halloween. It was in that awesome section of clothes they put aside for costumes, but I thought it had great potential. It only cost $5, too - a definite bargain. However, it was much too long for my petite frame.


It was so long, in fact, that I failed to capture the hem in this photo. It stopped just below the edge of the mirror, about 4 inches above my ankles. It took me a long time to get up the courage to chop it, but I finally did.


I used a seam ripper to detach the lining from the leather at the seams, then folded the lining under twice and re-hemmed it. I also took out the very top of the back kick-pleat that was left on the edge. I folded up 2 inches of the leather hem and held it in place with painter's tape.


I put some heavy books on the hem to crease it, rotating them around the edge every few hours. Once the crease was made, I used fabric glue to hold the hem in place. I thought about sewing it, having gotten braver about leather sewing with this refashion, but I liked the clean edge of the original. Once the glue dried, I tried styling it two ways. 

Here is the sporty leather look.


And the lady-like leather look.


I am so please with this one. As always, thanks for reading! Here's to the next 50 refashions!

-Amy



3 comments:

Sandy said...

oh well done! and congrats!
Sandy in the UK

jennifer elliott said...

Congrats on 50 posts! That's amazing! And you just hit this refashion right out of the park! I absolutely love it, and it looks amazing on you. I love that you can dress it up or dress it down. Great job.

IWOM said...

I want to go shopping with you!

I know what you mean about chopping up leather: somehow it seems a more 'permanent' step than chopping cotton or wool, which you could patch back together with not too much fuss.

Thanks for that book tip!

IWOM: EOD