Pants altered into a skirt

Ah, gauchos. Also known as culottes' younger, hipper daughter. Only, I don't think they're all that cool. Why? Well, first of all, they make me look shorter, which I don't like. Second of all, I don't wear cool boots or any type of fun, trendy shoe that you're "supposed" to wear with them. And this particular pair, from Target for $4.99:



They have really awfully-placed pleats on the front. I'm not a pleat person for pants. For skirts, yes, but not pants. This pair also has a tie, which serves no purpose other than to look cool, and they are a pretty shade of purple-blue. I think K would call it a Royal Blue. Anyway, I bought them thinking I'd give them a shot. Only I hated them the moment I got them on. They just aren't my style. But skirts are.

So I decided to say goodbye to the gaucho and hello to another knee-length cotton pull-on skirt. Besides, I hate returning things by mail -- it's a pain (no Target here). First, I slowly and carefully ripped out the inseams of both pant legs. I've done this with jeans before, as I've made jean skirts in a similar way. This part took the longest and was the most tedious, but once it's done, the project is a piece of cake. Next, I put the skirt on and decided how short I wanted it to be. With the seams out, it seemed much longer, and I wanted a summer-y skirt, not a winter-y one. So I cut off a few inches and then laid it flat on the floor (no good work table here).

The only tricky part on this half of the project was figuring out where to sew up the seams. If you just sew along the edges, you'll end up with a weird seam with bulk. So I chalked a diagonal line from where the front seam (the non-inseam part that didn't get taken out) started to curve outward to the bottom corner. I sewed on that line, discovering in the process that my garage sale sewing machine isn't in perfect shape (the stitches weren't even at all), and tried it on. I ended up cutting off a few more inches so that the skirt hit right at the bottom of my knees. I also tied the tie to the side, instead of in the middle. I like the asymmetry for that.



Voila! It's comfortable and doesn't make me look shorter than I already am! And I'm more comfortable in it. Maybe someday I'll be a convert to gauchos, but not today.

When bad dresses become good

I first saw this dress while I was browsing the clearance section of Target's Web site, and I thought it was really cute. After putting it in my cart to think about it and be sure I didn't forget about it, I went back and read the description and comments about it.

The comments for it on the Web site claimed it was unflattering and awkward because of a low-cut neckline, too-long straps, and worst of all, a band of elastic around the waist area. It was supposed to create a blouson effect for a knee-length dress, like on the left. And if you pull it down to get rid of that ugly effect, you get the dress on the right, which is just odd-shaped.



Yucky. As K put it, "it looks like a mushroom." Yes, it's trendy. I have a similar cotton dress that has the elastic at the waist, but it doesn't have the blouson effect (a.k.a. too much fabric up top) -- it's just there for shape. The comments for the dress included several people that found ways to alter it, so my initial attraction to it wasn't bothered too much. Mainly, they took out the elastic and loved the results. So when I ordered it, I knew it was a gamble and that the elastic probably had to go, and I was right, but I looked forward to a project and the pretty pattern on it. When I tried it on, the straps were a little too long, so it had no shape in the bodice. There's a nice gathered elastic spot under the bust, but with the straps as they were, it served no purpose and is hard to see.

Anyway, so I first dealt with the straps.

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The knotted feature was cute, but the Web site said you could adjust them and that was really impossible without looking weird. They didn't untie; they expected you to somehow knot up the knots. I'm not really sure how that would work. Anyway, I cut through them in a sort of central location.



I think I untied the closest knots and then re-tied them in a crossed fashion, so now the bodice fits much better and it's higher up, too.

Next, I turned the dress inside out and snipped at the inside elastic seam until I could pull the elastic out. I'll probably need to wash and dry the dress before the creases from the elastic go away, but I think it looks pretty cool:



It's a breezy sundress, all for $6.24, a pair of scissors, and absolutely no sewing. If I ever get tired of the length, or longer dresses go out of style again, I'll just cut it off. It's a cotton/modal so it won't fray easily and it doesn't have a hem to begin with anyway. The lining only goes down to mid-thigh anyway, because it was supposed to be knee-length. So there's less work there, too, if I choose to cut it shorter. Although I really like it this way, and I had a lot of fun altering it.