I had a whole pile of items sitting around my sewing machine waiting to be hemmed, dyed or fixed in some way. Before our trip, I gave myself the goal of trying to get through the pile… and one of the items was this Target linen skirt:
I bought it in 2022 because I liked the cinched waistband, the pockets and the lightweight linen fabric. However, I’m not really a *light colored* skirt kind of girl, so it wasn’t getting worn very often.
See, it’s cute but just kind of ‘meh’ and frankly I have better skirts to wear. The light fabric also meant I had to be careful about my underroos situation — as darker bottoms would show through. Also, I didn’t love the maxi length.
I added it to my ‘fix it or donate it’ pile and just kind of ignored it for a while. However, my first thought was that I should shorten it to knee-length so I would wear it more often. So chop-chop-chop, I went ahead and cut off the bottom and hemmed it back up.
Back into the ‘hmmm’ pile it went. And then, I decided to dye it! I ordered the Dark Green Rit Dye off Amazon and added it to a dye bath for about 40 minutes.
Then, I washed in on cold with a load of towels and stuck it in the dryer for about 20 minutes before letting it hang dry the rest of the way.
I really love the shade of green that I was able to get, as well as the fact that the grid pattern still shows through!
And OHMYGOSH, it goes so much better with my wardrobe now. Just the little change of chopping off some inches and dying it green turned this skirt into one I was ready to donate into one that I absolutely can’t wait to wear!
Disclaimer: This post contains an Amazon affiliate link. This means that clicking on a link may help me earn a small commission at no cost to you.
Unfortunately, they were a bit out of my current price range. And this certainly wasn’t a new idea – I’ve seen lots of variations of it everywhere and I wanted one for myself! So, when I remembered that I had thrifted a wooden pallet that I had been meaning to redo when inspiration struck… it worked out perfectly!
I thrifted the “Always Stay Humble” pallet for $4.99 with the intention to repurpose it at some point. I also purchased the paint set and brushes when I was in a painting mood and stuck them in a corner.
It took about 3 coats to cover the old text and then I used chalk to draw on the outline of my cactus. I mixed my own shade for the main body of the cactus, so that I could use the darker green for the lines.
The green took about 2 coats and the magenta was about 3 coats. Then, once it was dry, I added the darker green stripes. At this point, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to paint on the Christmas lights or use brightly colored felt I had sitting around. I decided to go for the felt, so that the colors would be more saturated and also I liked the slight fuzziness of the felt on the painting.
And this is how it turned out! I felt like the base needed a little something extra, so I added some purple plaid to it. I cut out the little gumdrop shaped felt for the lights and also a pretty star for the top. And it just happened to look extra cute with a pompom garland draped on top.
Sure, I still want one of those adorable pink Christmas cactus pottery sculptures. But, my version is pretty darn cute too!
I’m on a roll with my easy sewing projects lately (in case you missed it, here’s DIY: Adding Elastic to Track Pants for a Tall and Slim Kid). Well, this time I have the OPPOSITE problem. I was a little too fluffy for the waistband, but I looooved the skirt. And I had *just* enough confidence after my last project to think I could do something about it.
Here it is:
I’ll be sharing this skirt in my November Thrift Haul post later this month, but I picked it up at the thrift store recently for just $3.75. It’s a thick linen/cotton fabric with some absolutely beautiful hand done embroidery. A google image search leads me to think this is a vintage skirt that was handmade in Guatemala. Unfortunately, my thrift store no longer has dressing rooms, so I had to just cross my fingers that this might fit. And it didn’t.
The zipper on the side got maybe halfway up and that was it. It was so beautiful though, so I thought that since I had such luck with my last sewing project, I’d give another one a try. And in the worst-case scenario that it didn’t work out, I could still cut apart the fabric and make a pillow or tote bag with it.
I’m about to take you though the steps I did for this project, but please keep in mind… I’m a *intuitive sewist* and not an actual sewist. I basically just figure out what makes sense my head and I try to make that happen.
First up, I carefully cut away the waistband.
This was pretty easy to do, since it was sewn on with big stitches by hand. I’d just cut a stitch and then pull until I was able to get to another stitch and worked my way around the waistband. Once I got to the end, I gave the fabric a good tug to get rid of the pleating. Here it is with the entire waistband removed, so now the top of the skirt is way, way larger!
Next up, I removed the zipper. I don’t have a seam ripper, so I just snipped a few threads with my scissors and worked the entire zipper off the skirt.
Now that the zipper was out, I could just follow along the lines and sew the skirt up to the top. You can’t even tell that there was ever a zipper there.
Okay, now the moment of truth. I needed to add some elastic. I was going to use the same elastic I had on hand from Jack’s pants project, but I wanted the skirt to have a similar look to my notPERFECT LINEN skirts. I measured their elastic area and it looked like it was about 2 inches wide. So, I ordered this Elastic Band for Sewing, 2 Inches. The whole roll cost $5.99 and it was delivered overnight by Amazon.
I took the top of the skirt and I folded it over to make a little tunnel for the elastic. Real sewists call this a casing. I eyeballed it based on the width of the elastic and put in pins where I would need to sew. I removed the elastic as I ‘measured’ with it, so that the tunnel was empty when I sewed it on the sewing machine. Don’t forget to leave a little access hole!
Empty pocket = done
Next up was time for the elastic. Because this elastic was very thick, I made sure to stretch it first. I went all Get-In-Shape-Girl-Aerobics on it and gave it some big stretches. This way it won’t immediately get too baggy once I wear the skirt.
Once I did that, I wrapped it around my waist to figure out how long I wanted it and pinned it to size to make sure it would easily stretch over my hips and butt when I wanted to get the skirt off.
Then, I just fed the elastic through the tunnel. I put a safety pin on the end of one side of elastic and bunched the skirt up as I went. At the end, I safety pinned the two ends of elastic to each other so that I could try on the skirt before sewing everything into place.
Once I tried it on, I realized I wanted it a little tighter. So, I just yanked the elastic a little and re-pinned it. Then, I sewed the two pieces of elastic together — I got all crazy and zigzaged it a bit. Yes, it looks super messy but I wanted it to hold and nobody will see it anyways.
After the elastic was sewn together, I shoved it back into the tunnel and sewed up my access hole. For my last step, I put a line of sewing through the elastic on each side seam of the skirt. Hopefully this will keep the elastic from twisting… so we’ll see if it works.
And BOOM! I’m done!
Here is a closer look at the waistband:
I can’t believe how easy it was and honestly, looking at the skirt you wouldn’t know that I chopped at it and added elastic so it would fit me. So, if you’ve been intimidated by sewing projects like this… maybe give it a try because it really wasn’t that difficult. Especially if you thrifted something for less than the price of a Starbucks latte!
11/16/23 Update: I wore my new skirt to work today and I love it so much!
