45 Minute Polo Skirt

"Hey, I recognize that shirt skirt."
"Mommy, you look cute!"

Ahhh, what a glorious compliment. As Squirt is getting older and more opinionated, those don't happen very much.

There is a rule in our house that no clothes can go into the donation pile until I rummage through them first. Actually, I just shove them all into the bottom two drawers of my dresser waiting until inspiration strikes. The only thing is that I am a terrible seamstress and am often petrified of attempting to refashion apparel.

Does anyone else feel this way?

It probably comes as a surprise to a few. My mom had a B.S. in Clothing and Textiles - back when that was a viable study option. She sewed all the time. Every special dress I had was made by my mother. In sixth grade she made a beautiful tea length dress with 3/4 sleeves for Easter. It was stunning. Ruffles were the style back in the day and it had a ruffled skirt edge, ruffled sleeve edges, and a square ruffled yoke at the collar. The fabric was a soft ivory with a pastel floral print (the sort of print I'd rather die than wear now) and it belted with a wide lavender satin sash. Oh, how I LOVED that dress and could not wait for her to finish it.

On each of the ruffles she added narrow lace trim. Ever the perfectionist, my mom didn't like the way the lace laid on the dress so she removed it and stitched it all on by hand in order for it to lay the way she wanted. When it was finally finished, I was able to wear my Easter dress for the first time on Mother's Day. Mom would rather take the time to do things perfect than just get them done.

I am not like that.

Nor did I learn to sew at home. Her perfectionism prevented her from teaching me how to sew as she wanted to take out my stitching and redo it so everything was just-so. As a result, clothing scares me.

But I love stripes, remember? And The Hubs put a fantastic dark navy polo with thin white stripes into the give-away-or-do-whatever-with-it pile. I want a skirt out of that fabric so badly that I'm willing to try, but it's a nice shirt (Banana Republic) and I'll feel guilty if my refashion fails miserably since it would have been nice and usable to someone if I'd have been willing to donate it. Which led me to pull a different shirt out of the pile and practice on it.

Using a skirt I already have, I measured how wide the waistband should be and how long I wanted the skirt to be.

I then drew the outline on the back of some wrapping paper to create a pattern.

I knew that I wanted the stripes to match at the side seams so I chose to cut each piece out separately. Sliding a rotary cutting mat in the middle of the shirt made it easy to pin/cut the layers individually.

Take the first cut piece and pin it so the stripes match up just right, then cut out the second pieces.

Seam the sides and try it on to be sure nothing needs adjustment. Once the seams are just right, finish them with a zig-zag stitch or serge the edges. The skirt is just the right size to fit me in the waist as it is but I don't want the fabric to get stretched out and goofy as I pull it over my pear shaped figure. So I folded the top down an inch, pressed and stitched it to create an elastic casing. I added some 3/4 inch elastic, stitched off the opening, and am totally in love with my new skirt.

The best part about using the shirts is that I used the existing hem and don't have to finish off the bottom!

I love it. It's made me feel pretty confident to tackle the other shirt I'm drooling over. Now I just can't wait for Spring to wear it!