Repairs and Alterations

This is definitely not my favorite area of sewing but sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and go for it.  I worked on four garments this weekend, so more items are in wardrobe rotation as a result. And that's a good thing.

I made a TSW Lotus Skirt years ago in the pre-blogging era. You may recall the Lotus, it was in the Sewing Workshop lineup for quite some time but has disappeared from the site. Maybe it was time-- at least in the long incarnation.

Mine was almost floor length in front but that was the style back then (early 2000's) and besides, I was wearing heels all the time. I stopped wearing it after a while and put it in the closet of the Sewing Cave. However, after seeing some similar skirts on Pinterest, I decided I should pull it out again. However, the full length no longer worked for me. I haven't shrunk but my heel-wearing days are few and far between lately. So I cut 3" off the edges, which translates to 4 1/4" when you include the original hem allowance. I'm happy with the shorter length; it looks more modern now. This wasn't a difficult alteration but a time-consuming one with all the pressing up of the new hem on nice, albeit synthetic, black crepe fabric. It isn't the most pressing friendly fabric in the world and there's a lot of hemming involved.

So that was yesterday's project. Today included two more skirts that I've made, both from View C of  the Loes Hinse Boot Skirt pattern.

I think I've only blogged one of them, though. I flat lined that one, and the lining fabric shredded along one of the seams although there was ease. I guess there was a stress point somewhere. I fixed the seam with a combination of hand and machine stitching, including edge stitching along both of the side seam. Hopefully all of that stitching will work, it's a nice little workhorse of a skirt.

I also made a knit version last winter from remnants of this project but didn't snug up the waistband elastic enough and was too lazy to fix it. Fortunately, I used a normal casing for this one, so it was a simple matter to open the casing, shorten the elastic and close it back up again.

I also had a RTW project, since I'm 5'4" and most pants are too long for me. This pair was a nice pair of Calvin Klein dress pants that I bought during my banking days and never had time to fix. In addition to shortening them 3", I also narrowed the leg a bit below the knees to eliminate an unfortunate flare (another style from the past that no longer works for me). A little extra work, but not difficult and now I have a "new" pair of pants for the office.