Dearest Hive Readers and Needleworkers!
What a week! I've been up and down emotionally and physically, and yet fairly fruitful in my clothing-transformations... New dresses and skirts abound, and here I'll tell you a little about the lengthening of a gorgeous moss-green miniskirt.
It fits me already very nicely, but is so very very short that it barely covers the essentials - and so is profoundly impractical for a conservative Catholic town.
I felt strongly about how beautiful and perfect it is though it just needs MORE. And so I thought on that a bit.
I actually have a growing collection of perfect-and-too-short miniskirts and shorts like this: I LOVE pulling them out of the mountain of clothing at the 50c stall, and get SUPER-excited at what I can do to make them even more perfetto....
Thought about making the skirt a frilly edge of contrasting-coloured cord... and cut a length of these wonderful mustard-coloured cords (that were left by Karen when she passed); I anticipated that it'd be just right for a rippling effect, but no, it was only-just right for creating this swathe of new colour on the skirt.
It was a bit tight though, the new strip! I needed to add some details to camouflage the join in two strips that I'd cut from the mustard material. Karen was quite tall and solid-figured and so the legs of these cords of hers were great for a nice long strip - but still needed more than I expected.
This is such a great fabric for me to work with; very satisfying and nice to touch and play with. I love the older-fashioned fabrics like this, which have higher cotton content in them - it's a very different thing than working with slippery non-natural stuffs. It makes a big difference how pleasurable it is to handle materials; even if a fabric is very beautiful or attractive, shiny or the like, it becomes less pretty to me, if it is hard to handle!
The mustard strips seemed to work nicely - APART FROM! - eek, the curve of the skirt front flap made the additional strip go all bent! It was never going to work like that! I got the scissors out immediately and cut a 'forgiveness' slash, which opened the bent fabric quite a bit more neatly: then I obviously had to fill the cake-slice-shaped piece that it opened-up to reveal.
the original buttons on the miniskirt were such a beautiful aspect: there are 3 lovely brass-like buttons - one smaller on the inside and two on the outside
I straight away got the idea of a more fancy detail, rather than just adding a piece of mustard cord to the thing; I saw a nearby scrap of napkin, and felt that it'd provide a(nother) nice contrast to the skirt, which ultimately was still relatively conservative. It fitted nicely into the 'empty slice' shape, and overlapped well enough - so I set to sewing it in, and decided to also add another few details (from the same napkin) to other parts of the new added mustard section.
I used the napkin border to fill a join in the middle of the mustard strip, and also a final wee square at the edge corner of the underflap. And I lined the wedge shape with a thin vintage cotton, to give it some more stability and to hide the stitching underneath... I then focussed on the grungey pocket, which was a bit of a non-pocket: impractical, too small, all lonely and solo-poeckety: it didn't sit well with the overall symmetry of the garment. So I stitched it up with some mustard cord material - contrasting the direction of the cord stripes - and then embroidered with the nice pink thread, to compliment some of the original stitching on the skirt.
What do you think? Yes, the skirt was already just lovely, but fairly mass-produced and run of the mill.... Now it is very unique and more funky and fun, I feel. I'd love to hear your comments or ideas!
the white stripe of cross-stitching is there to cover the join between the two lengths of mustard cord that I ran along the bottom of the original miniskirt
I was also gifted some flippin' brilliant flowery rose and forgetmenot fabric this week. I love how these kinds of treasures come to me without asking - even making me grateful for my short stint back on mainstream social media, where my Guardia neighbours got the chance to see my sewing and recognised that I am seeking new materials always - yey! It also benefits me hugely that there is no longer a (reliable) used clothing pick-up door-to-door in the town, and so folks don't immediately have a means of disposing of fabrics. I inherit them instead: woohoo! It helps to be connected and to talk face-to-face in the community about what we love; there are often folks who want to support artists and creatives, and who willingly gift things to help their creative outpourings!
Much love to you all dearest friends, and many many thanks for your upvotes, comments and reposting!
www.claregaiasophia.com
