FO: (Altered) Maroon Skirt

So, I have a cute new skirt ... that I didn't make, lol. I picked this up at a thrift store probably a year ago, and I finally grabbed it out of the pile to figure out my minor adjustments. Just to show you, originally it looked like this:

Isn't that a sexy photo? You are so welcome. The skirt is clearly from the late 1980s judging by the weird length and the tag style. It has elastic across the back waistband, which I originally hated when I purchased it. When I bought this skirt, I had every intention of making a big time alteration like I did on my navy button down skirt, but when I pulled it out and saw that it already fit fine, I decided to take the easy way out and just make it shorter. I tried the skirt on and just pinned it up until I liked the look of the length, then ended up cutting off 9 inches(!) from the hem. Then I just turned under 1/4" and then another 1" and stitched it down.

I checked my thread racks and didn't have anything close to the color I needed, so I perused my hoard of antique wooden spools of thread - I have an inexplicable urge to purchase all wooden spools of thread at thrift stores even though I never use them. I believe I read somewhere that thread gets brittle with age, so now I have nightmares of all my seams spontaneously splitting open, ha ha. Anyway, I happened to have two different spools of thread that matched this really well. One of the threads was slightly heavier than the other, so I used that in the bobbin. I had just barely enough thread :) Hooray for not having to go out to buy thread!

So now I have (what I believe is) a very cute knee length skirt that I will wear the heck out of :) I love the pockets in particular, and I love the fullness. And I know these pictures make the front seem longer than the back, but I just must have stood weird - I swear it's level.

In reality, I never wear anything tucked in, so this is how this skirt will look out in the wild. Not quite as retro looking this way, but I still like it. Also, I have yet to figure out any other colors I can wear with this skirt but white or black. Maybe navy, but I don't have any solid navy skirts, so we shall see. This thrifted white button down does the job well for now.

So, since this post kind of feels like a cop-out as it was such a minimal amount of sewing, I figured I'd bore you further with reports on some mending I finally took care of, lol. 

I purchased these awesome dragonfly embroidered stretch twill capri pants at a thrift store and I didn't notice that they had two little holes until the first time I wore them. At least they were only $0.16, right? So, I finally decided to sew up the little holes. I just grabbed some khaki thread and pulled the holes closed. Done! Also, I caught my Golden Afternoon Renfrew on a door at work and ripped a little hole in the hem band. I was not happy at the time, but it was a fairly small hole, so I just used some sort-of-not-quite-matching thread and sewed it up. It's a busy enough pattern that you wouldn't see it unless I pointed it out, and that's good by me. I haven't worn this in probably 4 months, so it's nice to have it back in rotation :)

The last "alteration" I made was on these capri pants. I bought them at a thrift store for $0.16 (bag sales are wonderful things), and they fit great but I hated the cuffs. I know cuffs are supposed to be in or something, but I think they look pretty dumb, not gonna lie. Thankfully these were just barely tacked up at the top, so I just took a seam ripper to it and ironed it down with the clapper to help minimize the crease. I learned the clapper trick in the Tailoring Ready-To-Wear class on Craftsy. When you have a hem that was factory pressed, you just steam the living daylights out of it and press the clapper on it and it will minimize the original pressing line much more than just the iron alone. I'm sure it will level out with a washing or two as well. Now I have a pair of capris I will actually wear :)

So, I guess the moral of this post is that sometimes all things need is a really basic alteration or fix to be wearable. Three cheers for less work! Yay!

Summary:
Skirt: thrifted, $1.00
Notions: vintage thread, thrifted, $0.25
Hours: 1 from thought to finish (including searching for thread, lol)