Fireman, Fireman! Save My Skirt!!

sac·ri·lege
ˈsakrəlij/
noun
  1. violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred.
    "putting ecclesiastical vestments to secular use was considered sacrilege"



There's this huge issue regarding wearing vintage clothing. Well, lots of issues but for this post it's the dreaded Altering Vintage Clothing Issue.


I am fairly slim in the wallet area, so true vintage is typically out of my reach. However, my trips to Goodwill sometimes pay off. In this instance, I found an obviously vintage novelty skirt.

This is the fabric, but my skirt has quite a bit more yardage

Drindl, slightly faded with age but still adorable. There are two problems though. Too small, and too long.Easily fixed with some relatively inoffensive stitching, to adjust the waist and tuck up the hem.

Me, imagining fitting in this skirt. Im the Elephant.

DUNDUNDUN

The waistband was too fragile and fell to pieces under my hesitant seam ripping. Upon review the slight fading of the black has multiplied the problem. I cannot find an exact match, not to any of the colors. So how can I make a waistband?



A second problem arose. The skirt falls a few inches too long, a good three inches since I'm so short and that's without waistband. But the pattern is border print. To hem up, would lose the nice black edge, to hem down from the top would lose the top fireman.

It was a pickle.


After some review and inspection I noticed that there was a nice deep three in hem tucked up on this skirt. Perfect for a nice high waistband. But... to cut this would require an irreversible act. You can't uncut fabric, as we all know.


I chewed this conundrum for weeks. Silly to get so stressed about cutting fabric but well, welcome to sewing!

Finally I caved. Due to my butchering of the waistband, no one would wear the skirt. It was a goodwill find at 4.99 $, so I can justify cutting it.

WAIT! I ONLY CUT THE BOTTOM! ITS STILL VIABLE! PLEASE!!!!

Carefully I seam ripped the hem stitch, and eased my Mundials down the creased line.


Sigh

It was done. The desecration of a vintage skirt.


Side note, measuring the hem-turned-waistband gives us a whomping 177 inches! TWIRLY!!!

Because Im not a monster, I folded the top three inches down instead of cutting it, that way it can be lengthened if necessary. In addition, this adds to the general fluffiness of the skirt. Yay!






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