I must confess that there are some things in my closet that have been their a LONG time without ever getting worn. Some, like this unfortunate pair of paints have, in fact, never been worn (note the tag):
I bought this pair of pants with a suit jacket back when I was teaching (gasp! at least four years ago) and all it was waiting for was to be hemmed. I had gotten as far as pinning up one side to the length I would want it and that was that.
Two pregnancies later I am the same size again and, looking through my closet, I saw this. Now though, I would have nowhere to wear this pair of pants, so I decided to cut into them and make a skirt that I can wear with the jacket to church.
Sorry this picture doesn't show the skirt off much (I got too focused on taking pictures of what I did with the resulting scraps). The skirt was a basic knee length with a kick pleat at center back. All I did was open out the legs of the trousers and pin them back together with the “skirt” on to get a good shape. The legs had enough built in ease that this was really…well, easy :).
Because the trouser legs were quite wide at the bottom I started to feel like it would be a real waste not to use the cut offs for something. My daughter happened to be just small enough that I thought I might be able to squeeze a dress out of it for her.
I used McCall’s 6015, combining the view with the tulip sleeves and a solid top bodice piece. I had to take in the fullness of the skirt by almost half in order to have enough fabric, but made it work. I am sure it is a little annoying to crawl in because of that lack, but maybe that will encourage walking :).
I decided to make us even more matchy-matchy by taking a subtle embroidered motif present on my jacket lapel and recreating it on Quinn’s bodice. I think it turned out well (even though you can’t really see the outlining color in these pictures because it blends too well with the bodice—like I said: subtle design).
What do you do with scrap yardage?
