My Orthogonal-to-Fashion Skirt

Last summer, I made a super-easy pull-on skirt from cheap fabric I bought at Wal-Mart. (For those of you who do not commonly make a point of checking out the Wal-Mart sewing area, they always have fabric for $1, $2, or $3 a yard, plus their regular stuff. The $1 and $2 fabric is usually not that great, but they do sometimes have cute designs.) The skirt is not stylish at all, but has that kind of timeless doll-clothes element to it. And it's very comfortable, especially in warm weather - cooler to wear than a pair of shorts, really. As I mentioned before on this blog, I would like to make a bunch of these skirts (which take about 1.5 yards of fabric and leave me good leftovers to repurpose - am I absolutely insane that I am seeing a crazy patchwork garment in my future?) to wear this summer.

But it was difficult to figure out how to wear it because it looks ridiculous with a t-shirt tucked in (ridiculous = kind of bunchy and unflattering), but was too wide in the hips to wear with the shirt untucked without looking like I have no waist. I have a "problem" of having a somewhat small waist and a big ass so making stuff fit right isn't always easy. So one of my tasks for today (Juneteenth, and hence a state holiday) was to try to fix this skirt to be more wearable.

I started by taking some of the material in at the side seams from the waist to hip, which was easy and worked pretty well (a time to be glad of no side pockets!), but I was still struggling with the t-shirt dilemma. I played with the idea of making an obi style belt to lay over the tucked in t-shirt, but I couldn't get that to look quite right. (I think with different fabric, that look would be better than with this spring flower pattern.) Then I had the idea of creating the look of a tucked in waist on the t-shirt itself. So I took the tank top I happened to be wearing (made this weekend from an old, huge Slate magazine t-shirt that Tam gave me) and gave it poor man's darts - which is to say, I turned it inside out, put in a safety pin on each side at the waist, and turned it back.

So here is the final outfit. I am basically pleased with it. I think it's basically cute, fun, summery, unusual, and did I mention cheap? (My cool shoes were not cheap, but they were pre-Operation Cheap Ass, so I get a pass on that.) On other shirts I make to go with this and the other skirts I will have, I am going to incorporate a nipped waist into the shirt itself. I think ties on the side or a tie in the back would work well. I didn't want to attempt anything like that on this shirt though because (1) I love the I Love Books picture logo and would hate to screw the shirt up and (2) this shirt is primarily going to be worn with shorts, which works better with the looser fit (it is the same as the IQ Rock shirt I posted earlier).

I am going to test drive the skirt tomorrow at work with a white shirt and these nice Mary Janes that I don't have the opportunity to wear nearly enough. I have considered putting pockets into future skirts, but that's extra work, so I am interested to try wearing this pocket-less skirt again and see if the lack of pockets is too annoying.

I also want to shout out to LivingDeb for linking to the Wardrobe Refashion blog at just the right time. Operation Cheap Ass was starting to get in the way of my desire for some new clothes for the summer, but WR inspired me to get back to sewing for myself.