Just to provide further proof of my predilection for unusual clothing … please allow me to present my new skirt.
This skirt is the love-child of four old pairs of jeans. They were a bit battered but in favourite colours, and had fabric in some areas still in pretty good knick. Charcoal denim (Cassie’s), olive green corduroy, olive green moleskin and chocolate moleskin (Craig’s). The chocolate moleskins had previously been nibbled away at to produce the Brown parliament.
The skirt pattern is another offspring of Vogue 8363; yes, the very same as my previous big baggy pockets skirt. Quite different, yes?! That’s the beauty of a well-drafted good basic pattern like this one, you aren’t limited to the plain unadorned versions, which obviously have their place in any well-rounded wardrobe too! but my point is that you are only limited by your imagination 🙂
I thoroughly enjoyed making this. For a start it’s re-using old unwanted textiles, always an activity dear to my heart. I am in the fortunate position that when my family is tossing out cruddy old clothes they tend to lob them my way first.
And I love puzzles, and making this skirt was a fun puzzle. This was a joyful and totally engrossing project where I happily zoomed along, cutting out on the laundry floor, up and down, rushing to the sewing machine, the iron; slicing and piecing away without any thought to time passing. Bliss…
I used the pattern variation that allowed for front slanted pockets, and made whole skirt front and whole skirt back pattern pieces from newspaper, re-drawing the side seams on both front and back to be just slightly more flared and A-line than the pencil lines of the pattern although not quite as pronounced as for my big baggy pockets skirt.
I unpicked and re-used the waistband from the charcoal jeans and made use of its resident buttonhole although I sewed on a new flat button that won’t dig into the small of my back when I’m sitting back in a chair. I also re-used the waistband of the chocolate jeans to finish the lower hem, putting its button and buttonhole at the front. It wasn’t long enough to do the full hemline of the skirt, so I made a filler piece and a few extra belt loops and repositioned all the belt loops to distribute them evenly and hide the joining seams. I also saved the fly front off the olive green moleskins and re-used it for the skirt closure at the centre back, although retrospectively I’m not in love with this. It’s quite a bulky fly with a heavy duty jeans zip, but I guess the look of it is in keeping with the whole cobbled together, rough-and-ready look of the skirt.
I cut the patches so as to keep lots of pockets from the various jeans. The skirt actually has eight pockets in total!… in addition to the two regular slanted front hip pockets that I sewed as part of the pattern; there are two patch pockets, three welt pockets and one curved side pocket in it. I only did this for fun, for the aesthetics of them, but they are all still functional.
It’s just a bit of silliness really, but I like off-beat random patchwork-y stuff like this 🙂
Inspiration? Well, I’ve pinned like a tonne of this sort of thing… this Isabel Marant dress, this mystery jacket, and also Yoshimi’s jeans from a few years ago. Also, while I was busy laying down patches and switching around different shapes and sizes, this cottage kept popping into my head. Now a cottage probably seems like an off-the-wall (ha!) inspiration for a skirt, but let me explain; superficially, the re-cycled nature of the materials is an obvious commonality between the cottage and my skirt, as well as artistically, in the random and irregular grid of their design. And in purpose, pockets in clothing have a correlation to windows in architecture. Pockets and windows are a visual feature of a thing, but also a functional component of that thing; specifically as an opening to/in their respective objects but not the entry point to that object.
So in that vein; can one consider a pocketless garment to be like a window-less building; and are zips and button-bands akin to the doors/gates of a building?
Discuss in one thousand words or less and submit by the end of class.
(only joking)
Sometimes I think it would be lots of fun to have a group to discuss and dissect clothing and fashion theory; like a book club, only far more frivolous.
(sigh) A pipe dream…
This skirt is another swap item.
Details:
Top; top “a” from shape shape by Natsuno Hiraiwa, white cotton, details here
Skirt; Vogue 8363 modified, made from 4 old pairs of jeans, my review of this pattern here
I just LOVE this post! This is the reason I get inspired looking at this blog – sometimes I think "where are we going?" but I know when we arrive it will be fun. I also love the rock behind Carolyn – look at the those gorgeous colours, what a marvellous tweed it would make. And as for Sienna, I can only say never work with animals and children.
Carolyn, me encanta el upcycling que has hecho con 4 pantalones, te ha quedado una falda preciosa, original y además única. Te felicito.
your creativity never fail to amaze me! i love it on so many levels – love the way it looks, the way it recycles old yeans into something new and cool and fresh as well as the way you used bunch of different pockets in such an interesting way! mind blown! also, i'm in the middle of recycling project myself, and was starting to get a bit tired of all the seam ripping, but your new skirt made me a lot more enthusiastic about all that 🙂
Love it! I can't wait to go rummaging through my old jeans to find something to chop up and remake.
I loved reading this post – you're a real artist & clothing/textiles are your medium. It's so interesting to read how you arrived at the finished garment & it's such a fun skirt!
What a great way to upcycle clothing! Love it!
As usual, no waste here! Looks very creative and definitely your colours. Using the newspaper for your pattern reminded me of when my Mum would make up patterns out of newspaper, for us (5 girls) when we were kids.
This is fab Carolyn. You are so creative with fabric. love all those little pockets everywhere!!
This is a fantastic skirt. As so often, I am blown away by your skills and creativity. And I especially love your cottage/skirt analysis–what a fun way of thinking.
This is a very interesting skirt and I like how you've recycled the textiles!
Awesome! I just love it!
Wow! I love that you reused the zipper portion of one of the pants for your "new" skirt. Brillant! You are so creative.
I love patchwork corduroy! Here is a quilt I made from thrifted corduroy clothes: http://hashiworks.blogspot.com/2009/04/april-28.html
That's so cool! I find it so neat to see when people make fabric out of, well, fabric! Beautiful job on the skirt, it's really stunning and very creative 🙂
thank you so much Kat 🙂
very good reuse of those old jeans and perhaps it is a skirt-y version of the adventurer's vest, with all those pockets. just right for travel where you could carry camera lenses, compass, etc. And I would TOTALLY join that discussion group – but prof. my paper will be late – too much sewing to do 🙂
Ho ! I love it !!! This shirt is totaly amazing !
Your skirt is very cool. I love the originality. I have been holding on to old clothes for ages waiting for inspiration to strike. Clearly you are not lacking in inspiration!
Love the way you combined the pieces with all the pockets and waistbands top and bottom. So creative yet absolutely functional. My very favourite kind of art!
thanks Louise 🙂
Ok, I read your blog to see all the exciting things you sew and inspire myself for the future time when I will have the time and space and energy to sew… But your pocket/window analogy? Is just brilliant. I enjoy it on so many levels. Both hilarious and really clever. Thank you!
thank you so much Radostin! 🙂
Just love it. So cool.
Ellen 🙂
I love your creativity Carolyn. I am not so sure I could pull off wearing a skirt like his.
You are so creative and I can see the relation to the cottage, but oh my my mind would never get there itself. Love the chocolate waistband on the hem.
Such a clever use of those jeans and making the skirt looks like so much fun too!
Love that skirt!!!
I love your ability to imagine possibilities with fabric and shapes – it's very inspiring and the results always leave me thinking 'gah! she's so clever!' 🙂
OK your patched skirt looks a trillion times better than mine! I shouldn't have used an elasticated waistband I am sure that didn't help…but I love repurposing and will reuse it somehow. Great colour combinations, btw.
Oh.My.Gosh. You've crawled inside my head with this one. I do love all your patchwork clothing and I'm now following both the Pinterest boards to which you linked. I don't visit Pinterest often (I do try to have a life occasionally), but these are exactly the sort of images that inspire me. I have seen so many fabric scraps that would have been thrown away had I not saved them. I absolutely deplore waste and am aghast at how much people just thoughtlessly discard. I try to collect patterns that use patchwork ideas and I absolutely love that idea. I'm planning cream and white / off white, neutral light shades of patchwork for curtains in my sewing room (decorated with rows of neutral buttons). I worry that I'm too old to carry off the patchwork styles, but I hope one day to give it a go. There is a book called Remake It: Clothes that celebrates various fashion designers who recycle fabric and other material in their design process. Some of their patchwork designs are really elegant. If you've not read it, I'm sure you would love it. Given that the whole business of clothing our bodies is one of the least eco-friendly things we do because of that crazy thing called fashion, I don't think this sort of thought and discussion can be considered in the least frivolous, particularly when you consider the silly sort of books I've been reading. For some reason I find myself escaping into paranormal and dystopian stuff; embarrassing, but I do read the odd serious book to keep the brain ticking. I've found that some of the best novels are the ones made into films, so while I'm not going to the movie theatre, I will check the listings and look at trailers on Youtube when thinking about what book / novel to try next. There is a film coming out today called Divergent. If you watch the trailer, the main character has a dress that I immediately thought of when I saw your skirt, I think it's the waist band around the hemline, but I think you'll like her jumper (dress with long sleeved T underneath) in neutral patchwork, at least the bit I saw of it. Love to know what you think. Now I'm going to re-read your post, I got so excited I skipped around a lot!
Magnificent use of what would otherwise be wasted. I wish I had your imagination Carolyn!
ooh, fun!
The dog. This beguiling dog got me, again. Not only does he/she match your coloring but the background as well. He/she's the cherry on top of a great project and nice photo arrangement. Congratulations on another fine garment!
thank you!
you never fail to impress me! love this, it's so clever!
No idea whether you formally studied art, but if not, probably you shouldn't, as clearly you are a master artist. I love the way your mind works, too, as that building/garment analogy is brilliant and I'd love to join in that discussion. 🙂 I've said it before, bit ill repeat it. THANK YOU for being willing to share your creativity with the world. I, for one, truy appreciate it and it makes my day a bit brighter when I see a new post on your blog. I KNOW I'm about to see a unique garment in a gorgeous setting with a professional write up.
Wow, that's such a cool garment! I love both the functionality and the artistic sense behind it. 🙂
I love this! My favorite part is how you kept the pockets in all their functionality!
Hurray, you, for finding a new use for old garments! I like the pioneer spirit you exhibited in the design of this skirt. The use of waistband for top and bottom edges was inspired — repetition of design elements enforces the "I meant to do that" aspect of the finished garment, and saves it from looking like something the dog dragged in.
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Absolutely love thisSew funky, fun and inspiring Did a similar thing with tweed samples But love yr pockets everywhere