Dramas of a Peach Coloured Skirt.

Don't you hate it when you have to renovate someone else's sewing?

Last summer (2009-2010) I bought a skirt off Etsy.

The colour was pretty, the skirt looked great in the photos. So I ordered it and paid for it.

I should have had my suspicions when the guy questioned my measurements that I had sent...I'd ordered the size that I thought would best fit me - and apparently he thought that I'd measured myself wrong...so we conversed back and forth and the skirt was on it's way. Apparently it was being made to fit my measurements.

Well, the skirt came. The colour was great, the silhouette was good, the fabric was comfortable.

The way the skirt did up was just weird. It put too much strain on the button/s and guess what? It felt like it was too big...

Now I'm all about different ways to do things, but man, this skirt just didn't work. I perservered however, because I just loved everything else about it.

So the summer season came and went. The skirt got worn enough times to get "christened" the kiraph way - this means having food spilt on it - and then summer went away and the skirt went into my cupboard.

Now came the summer of 2010-2011. I decided about a month ago that I wanted to wear the skirt. I was well and truely over the honeymoon period of this garment so when I got dressed, I put up with the ill-fitting, strangely constructed waistband for all of half an hour. The skirt came off, shorts went on and I spent the next hour or so unpicking the waistband off the skirt.

Then it sat in my mending/alteration pile (yes I know you all have a huge one as well!) until the other day.

I was on a mission. Now, in some respects the skirt was well made - the seams were overlocked, the waistband had been sewn on very well, the top of the pockets (the part you could see) were finished well and the hem was sewn well.

But the lining? And the inside of the pockets? What a mess! The lining was just a length of nylon chiffon that was poorly finished off - and the inside of the pockets, well here is a picture of that...

How can you not finish the edge of a pocket when the fabric is woven?

Anyway, in the end I zig-zagged over the pocket edges and cut off the rest of the seam allowance (which was huge in some places) with pinking shears. I removed the 'lining.' I took in the skirt with a couple of pleats (there was already one big one at the centre front) and sewed an exposed zipper onto the centre back. Then I took some length and width off the waistband.

After sewing it on, the waist was still too big, so I just put 2 pleats in the back. Then added 2 button holes and buttons.

In the end it fits a lot better, and isn't uncomfortable to wear. But jeez.... what an effort!!!

So, what would you have done?

Got rid of the garment?

Pulled the whole thing apart and made something else of it?

Left it in the cupboard, never to be worn again only to remind you of the time you briefly enjoyed wearing it?

Or as I did, renovate?