What if he shows up with another woman? What if one of my sleeves catches on fire and it spreads rapidly? What if instead of Tic-Tacs I accidentally pop a couple of Ambien and I have to keep punching my leg to stay awake?

A while ago, my mum gave me a bunch of skirts to cut up for the fabric.  They are all from Liberty; back in the olden days (1980s), Liberty had a shop in Cambridge which sold skirts that had pre-elasticated waistbands, and were sewn up one side, so all you had to do was measure yourself and sew a seam.  We didn't have a sewing machine then as Mum didn't really care to sew, so she sewed and hemmed all these skirts by hand.  They are about as unflattering as any skirt can possibly be; loose elasticated waist, mid calf length, masses of fabric around the hips and bum, and generally pretty horrible.  The fabric though is just beautiful, so they are worth salvaging just for that.

This is the first one I rescued:

It's a lovely print, and I don't think you can buy it anymore; I can't even find it on the internet, although I'm not sure I am searching for the right thing.  If you can find it, please let me know.

All I really did was cut the waistband off, opened the side seams with my seam ripper and undid the hem.  I felt terrible doing that; my mum's hand sewing was absolutely beautiful, and must have taken ages.  I cut it in a sort of A-line shape, and made a beautiful interfaced waistband, that ended up being far too small, probably because I can't measure and left far too much seam allowance, resulting in me losing about 3 inches off the whole thing.  Depressing.  Obviously, then I didn't have enough fabric for a proper waistband, so I found some corduroy and measured it around my waist, then added a bit and shoved it on.  It's not technically perfect, but you know.  It's going to be around my waist, and you can't really tell it's not been lined, and if anyone wants to have a look at the waistband, they are clearly a weirdo and will be told to bugger off. 

It looks alright, doesn't it?  I sewed the buttons on today, so much fun.  They are from my purple Garter Yoke cardigan, which lost two buttons and a third chipped, so I've bought new ones which I have to sew on.  All eleven of them.  

I might even finish the cardigan I'm knitting to go with this skirt before the end of the week.  The way the weather is at the moment means I really need it.  It's freezing in London.  Does this count towards the whole vintage pledge thing?  It's certainly vintage fabric.