It's Official!

Well folks, I've been thinking about a sewing blog and finally here it is.
Hi! My name is Alysa, in case you don't know me. I love to re-fashion things.
I started when my first daughter was not even a year old, and now she is 3!
I started re-fashioning out of necessity but also because it was creatively challenging to
take a piece of clothing and completely change its purpose by changing its shape.

I don't claim to be a great sewer. I'm certainly still learning but if you don't mind learning right
along with me then this is going to be a beautiful thing.

I got this pair of pants from my generous sister-in-law. She told me that since these pants weren't
exactly super cute, her daughter had just used them as "paint pants".

Sorry, I already chopped off the waistband, which explains why that part doesn't really match up.

After bringing these pants home, I looked at the print and fell in love. Polka dots are very popular right now, and I began envisioning what I could create with this cute print. Here's what I came up with!

To get a skirt from a pair of pants was a slightly long process. Only because I made my job hard from the beginning. You'll see how.

First:   Unpick both legs and turn them sideways, like this.

Next:  Find a skirt that already fits in the length and cut just longer than that. I was thinking at the time that I would need to hem this skirt, but in the end because of the fabric I didn't need to because it is knit. No hemming! :)  Also, the extra length came to be a blessing.

Okay so here's where my mistake can help you. Here's what I should have done instead of what I did. First, create the new waistband. I measured my daughters waist and made a casing that would fit with a little extra wiggle room. (Wiggle room is always good with skirts. Makes it easier to have the skirt grow with them for a little while until the length becomes too short.) If you wonder what i mean by casing, look at the picture below with the top and bottom of the skirt in two pieces. The top piece is what I mean by casing. It's the casing that will hold the elastic that will hold the skirt up.  From other sewing blogs I've learned the proper way to measure the elastic for your waistband is to take your waist measurement and substract 1.5 to 2 inches so that the elastic will stretch and hold up the skirt. If you don't have that stretch, the skirt would have no tension and would therefore fall down having nothing to hold on to.

  About 3 inches from the bottom of your finished waistband, cut all the way across. 

It should look like this. Except I didn't finish my waistband first. You can do it either way.

Now because these are pants, you will have holes where the legs came together since this is no longer pants and will now be a skirt. I would finish taking out all the leg seams through the crotch area of the pants and I would cut all that curved fabric straight up, creating straight sides that can be sewn together. Take all the extra leg fabric and keep sewing it into the skirt bottom until you reach the fullness you are looking for. I wanted a very full skirt, so I used almost all of it. I only saved a few strips to be sewn around the bottom to add a little length and fun detail. Sew the bottom to the waist in any manner you like. I sewed mine together taking the bottom of the skirt and actually making it my top so that the skirt would flare more. I took little folds and pinned them all the way around the skirt and then sewed.

At this point you can stop. I wanted more feminine touches. I took an old shirt with lace trim and cut as much lace as I needed and sewed it at the bottom of the skirt. I also sewed more lace where the bottom and top come together, just to add some more detail and continuity to the skirt.
And then just for the heck of it, I added 3 rosettes. Because who doesn't love rosettes on a skirt. :)

                                    Here it is again. Finished. The rosettes are a little hard to see.

                                                  I love to see my projects being used. :)
                                      Especially when they look like I could have bought them.