Waistcoat refashioned from skirt

This skirt belonged to my daughter.

She had made up a charity shop bag and I shamelessly went through it first and edited out anything I could use to refashion.  I don’t feel much guilt, I do use these shops on a regular basis.

Its from ‘New Look’,  48% acrylic, 31% polyester, 21% wool, made in Lithuania,

I thought this was a rather precise mix of content.  Were they aiming for 50:30:20 and got it wrong or was there some actual science went into this to work out the exact optimum combination?

This skirt is a perfect example of globalisation, made in Lithuania, Imported via Indonesia, there is a Romanian company mentioned as well, sold by a UK company.

There wasn’t a great deal of fabric and I didn’t really have a plan at the start, but liked the colours.

I’ve recently gone through my wardrobe and chucked a few things out but this also identified some gaps,  I decided I could do with some sort of body warmer so the future of this skirt was as a waistcoat.

The skirt construction was very simple, there was no lining.

The back seam got ripped and the zip removed, along with all the darts and this was how it looked.

I ironed everything flat – nearly had a disaster there, this fabric won’t take a hot iron, but it had the advantage of being virtually fray proof so only a very small seam allowance was needed.

There was just enough fabric to make the front pieces of a waistcoat , so using a pattern I normally use to make t-shirts, but normally adding a seam allowance,  I cut the pieces out and lined them with plain white cotton from a men’s shirt in my stash.

At this point I started to wish I’d undone the skirt seams and matched up the stripes properly but it was too late now.

I needed a back piece, and an old cardigan  in my stash, in a sort of duck egg blue cotton with elastane, seemed to fit and would provide some stretchiness.

Here’s how it came together, I just cut the back piece of the cardigan out to start with then did some tidying up.

Fully sewn and being worn:

I am going to leave it open for now and if I don’t like it will add some sort of closure later.