Before my dad moved in September, my sisters and I helped him pack
up certain parts of the house. All three of us went through Mom’s
closet together, tossing some clothes into the “donate” pile and setting
aside certain items that sparked a memory for each of us. Mainly, we
each kept a dress Mom wore to each of our weddings. Mom wore a nice
skirt and crinkly blue shirt when I married Charlie. I donated the shirt
but kept the skirt, knowing I could cut off the waist area and keep the
original hem of the skirt.
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| THE SKIRT MY MOM WORE TO MY WEDDING |
I really didn’t face too many obstacles after trying on the skirt,
marking the new waist, and cutting off the top part. I decided to try
the bunchy method (my technical term) by using a sewing needle and
making big straight stitches around the top of the skirt. Once the top
was loosely stitched, I tugged at the long ends of the thread to make
fabric bunch up. When I was satisfied with the gathers and checked the
bunchy waist matched the width of my elastic band, I pinned the elastic
to the skirt.
 |
| WHY MESS WITH A GOOD HEM? |
The overall process didn’t take me long, and I really liked using the
bunch waist method and want to use it again soon. For some reason, I
just couldn’t get the method to work on my sewing machine. I set the
dial to the longest stitch and loosened the tension part, but I just ran
into so many issues. Sometimes the thread underneath just bunched up,
creating a big fat tangled mess. Even if I made my way around the skirt,
the thread wasn’t loose enough to gather the fabric when I gently
tugged at the thread ends.
 |
| WHY AM I NOT LOVING THE WAISTBAND? |
After numerous attempts and adjustments to the stitch dial and tension
wheel, I just gave up. And I am completely OK with being a quitter
because hand stitching was so much quicker and easier. I really wish I
had thought about that in the first place. Anyway, because I really
really really didn’t like the 1-inch white elastic waistband on the
skirt, I decided to replace it with a 2-inch black elastic band. If I
had 2-inch white elastic, I would’ve started with that in the first
place, but saving myself time and money, I just used what I had.
 |
| LOVE LOVE THE NEW ELASTIC WAISTBAND |
I didn’t even bother cutting off or taking the thread ripper to the
stupid white elastic band. I simply pinned the 2-inch black elastic over
the white elastic and sewed away. Despite the waistband being black, I
absolutely love love love the end result. The skirt fits like a glove,
and I love twirling around in it. It’s so pretty. So, what did I learn?
Per my personal preference, I should use wider elastic if I’m not hiding
it in a casing. And I really don’t like working with specific white
elastic because it made me curse — a lot.
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here.
Jennifer Elliott
For
more details about me, my blog, and this post, click - See more at:
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For more details about me, my blog, and this post, click
here.
Jennifer Elliott - See more at: http://refashionco-op.blogspot.com/search/label/jenniferelliott14#sthash.WjysveRX.dpuf
2 comments:
To gather, set your machine to the longest stitch at the HIGHEST tension. It will gather as it comes off the machine, and you can easily pull stitches to gather it more if needed.
I love the way you refashioned such a sentimental skirt into a skirt you would wear. That's the thing I love most about refashioning.
I recently refashioned some of my mothers old t-shirts from when we lived in Swaziland. They hold so many memories but let's face it, none of us are going to be using them as t-shirts again. So chop, chop and they are now cute harem pants for my daughter. It makes me so happy to see her wear them.
http://www.roued.com/20-year-old-t-shirts-to-kids-harem-pants-refashion/
Eddie, EOD
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