Skirting The Issue

Two years ago, I bought a Next dress in a charity shop for £4. I didn’t like the cap sleeves so took them off- and wore the dress on its own, or sometimes over a shirt.

Then one day last year Bob said something about the dress “having a sort of Amish-housewife look about it” – and I just knew he didn’t mean in a Harrison-Ford-likes-Kelly-McGillis sort of way. So the dress was temporarily relegated to the wardrobe in the spare bedroom.

Then a couple of blogs [here, here] I dip into on a regular basis mentioned the 52 projects thing. So I started making a list – and ‘do something with that Next dress’ was high on the list.

I carefully dismembered the dress, then I dug out this Simplicity pattern, which I purchased [on offer] a little while ago, and used the skirt part to cut out the pieces for the shorter of the two skirts on the pattern. There was a fair bit of fabric there. I used some vintage buttons for the little tabs, and not having any brown twill tape, faced the waistband with some scarlet tape from the Great Stash.

On the left – the one on the pattern – on the right, my new skirt

The first thing on my 52 list was ‘make a list’ and the second ‘sort out Next Dress’ – and here we are in week 3. I have some cheerful yellow cotton print, so maybe if I have time, this week’s project will be to make one of the tops from the pattern…

I shall wear the skirt with my green opaque tights and boots and a green poloneck sweater. That certainly won’t look too Amish, will it?