22 inch waist scuba skirt to 2 hour top refashion

Rather guiltily I went into my local Traid as they were having a sale (again).  I think they were trying to get rid of all their summer stuff.

Why the guilt?  Because to be honest, I already have enough clothes and could probably afford go a year or two without buying anything at all, but the trouble is I like making things so am now regarding refashioning as a fairly harmless hobby but nevertheless gave myself strict orders that I could only buy one thing.

My eye was drawn to this skirt.  I liked the pale turquoise colour and also the fabric was a nice light scuba jersey knit, quite with a sort of shiny finish. This fabric was excellent to work with and scuba is certainly something I will be on the look out for in the future.

 

The amazing thing about this skirt was the teeny size of the waist.  It was 22 inches (I measured it later).  I don’t know anyone with a waist that small, and clearly there was no great demand for skirts in that size because it was brand new with labels.

This was the only way I could wear it.

I could see that despite the small waist size, the large pleats meant there was actually a decent amount of fabric in there, enough to make a top anyway.  The sales assistant gave me a funny look as I handed over £3.

I gave this skirt a wash using my usual cycle before attempting a refashion, it seemed to survive OK.  The wash was also necessary because there were a couple of dusty footprints on the skirt.  It had obviously fallen off the hanger a few times and been trodden on.

I removed the offending waistband to reveal a 56 inch wide tube of fabric.

There was also a nice organza lining in a matching colour.

I downloaded the 2 hour top pattern from sewdifferent.  This is a simple pattern with just 2 pieces to make a raglan top

2 hour top FREE sewing pattern – Step-by-step tutorial

Actually wordpress, the link does work.

I took the precaution of making a toile from a sheet to check the fit – I wouldn’t want to go wasting a £3 charity shop skirt now would I?

The fit was good but I added a couple of inches to the body length and removed an inch or so from the sleeve length.

Sadly there wasn’t really enough fabric to make the whole thing from the skirt.  I could have compromised a bit on the along the grain layout and patched a bit to make it fit, but I decided to instead use a contrast fabric for the sleeves.

I bought this lovely fabric on a recent trip to Norway when finding myself with about £12 in Kroner left over, and thinking that it was unlikely I would return to Norway anytime soon – no offence intended to Norway, I was just being realistic,  I went into a fabric shop to see what I could buy with that sort of money.  It was also jersey and a similar weight to the skirt fabric.

I think it looks like some kind of background wallpaper photo on a phone.

I made binding for the neckline from the skirt remains. The stretch in the fabric meant I could cut a less than 45 degree angle, and make sufficient binding with less fabric, and bound the hem with the contrast fabric.

 

The fabrics were a stretch jersey so I used a narrow zig zag stitch throughout, as I don’t have a serger.  This worked surprisingly well.

The pattern instructions don’t tell you that there are no seam allowances included so it is up to you to work out where these are needed (everywhere except neck and hem) and add your chosen allowance accordingly when cutting out.

I only discovered this when reading the comments on the blog about the pattern.

Now a word about scuba fabric, which I have read up about since making this top  It behaves very well under the needle and drapes smoothly.  It also, apparently does not fray at all and when I made this top I thought it would look very nice without any hem but wasn’t quite brave enough to leave it like that. Information I have also found says that scuba does not breathe at all … UH OH.  I will have to see how sweaty this fabric is IRL as a top.

 

BONUS FEATURE:

Although I was only supposed to be buying one item in Traid, I was amazed to find this beautifully hand crafted unworn dress.

It was originally priced at £18.99 but was now reduced to £3.

Someone had put hours of work into this dress, it was lined and had these lovely bows on the front and then they had donated it, why would they do that? and all their hard work was being sold for £3. I had to rescue it.

I have no idea what I am going to do with this dress but will try and find something to do it justice.