Pants to Skirt in an hour!

I needed a skirt for my upcoming trip to Ethiopia and all mine were too black, too short, too long, too bulky, too twisty, too twirly....you get the picture.  I own nothing that would work.

I evaluated my options. I could buy one locally at the wonderful but very pricey outdoor store, order something online and waste hours looking for it, pay for quick shipping and then discover upon arrival that it doesn't fit me anyway ....which is pretty typical or I could just make do.

I thought about my daughter (hesowedshesewed) who made all her daughters clothes from thrifted clothes and didn't buy anything new for a year.  I wondered if I could  refashion a clothing item in a big girl size? So I thought about that for a while as I ate a million cookies.  (Hey, I run a little now...so I am doing a scientific self- test to see if I really have bumped up the old metabolism)


When all the cookies were gone I went to work. I had found these green (yeah, green)  Chico Zynergy pants last year at a thrift store in Chicago. I didn't know size 3 meant "large enough to use as a tent for family camping." But I know that now. At the thrift store is the larger the size the better value?

With nothing to lose so I got out my scissors. In one hour I had a skirt! And it will do just fine :) It's a little longer than I'm used to but appropriate for this trip....and when I return, I know where the scissors are!

After this photo I ironed the skirt and it actually looks a little better than this picture.... but I was trying to blog from my phone and  this is what I got but you get the idea.

Coming to the Quilt Party

I read on a friends blog about the online quilt show and  took a look. I have been enjoying  the Park City Girl Quilt Festival so much. I knew I needed to join the party!  With my last blog attempt almost a year ago, this has been quite the nudge.  

I try to make a quilt every year during our long, cold winter season.  Gathering up all the colorful fabric to surround me during the long gray days  helps to brighten my spirits. It beats sitting under one of those "happy" lights.  

I always have someone in mind to gift the finished product to when I begin.  These are my  quilts from the last two winters.  I missed stitching this winter....as I found myself out of town supporting a friend who had the stitches on her life quilt unravelling.  

This quilt is called, "Fandango" and it was a kit purchased at our local (and now, sadly gone) quilt shop. If you look closely, the fabrics are plaids and stripes. If it was left up to me, I would never have bought any one of these fabrics.  We all thought they looked like some old guys shirts. Well, did I learn something.  The  fabrics were beautiful all put together, as you can see. 

This was made for my friends daughter's high school graduation and finished for her college graduation!  Inspiration was gathered from a trip to Seville, Spain where we (us moms) took flamenco dancing lessons for a week to celebrate a milestone birthday.  Our husbands spent the time being less inspired at the dance but became experts on some fine cuisine and authentic churros.  I just loved the vibrant colors as you can see from the department store photo of the dresses.

 I gave it to her at her graduation camp out.  Memorial Day weekend on Lake Superior.  It was so cold we all had on long underwear, down vests, down coats, hats and when we sat around we wore our sleeping bags.  Was this fun?  Oh yes!  And the quilt was put to good use right away!

The off  square quilt is from Karla Alexander's book, "Stack a New Deck."  It is called "Bent out of Square."  I soon discovered that making something  to look that random took more work than I imagined.  My daughter picked out 23 different kinds of batik fabric (and she is not a decision maker) for the top. 

 This quilt was for my first grandchild.  We did not know if it would be a boy or girl so we couldn't lean towards any shades of pink or blue. (I begged her to find out...the info was available to them...but they refused because they wanted  it to be a surprise. Who does this now days?)  I was able to have it ready for her baby shower on mothers day weekend.

Thanks for coming to my part of the party! Since my current posting history is on an annual basis, I am not to techno savy (and I do wish to get better at that)...but for now I just jumped in there to join my fellow quilters :)

http://parkcitygirl.blogspot.com/2009/04/quilt-festival-spring-2009.html