A Refashioned Skirt!

I'm finally getting around to posting about this skirt that I refashioned.  It used to be a nice navy skirt with a floral print.  It is very comfortable and it's just my size these days.  However, it was a bit too short to wear anywhere but around the house.

My solution: add some ruffles!  I had just purchased a few yards of light blue baby-whale corduroy from Joann's red tag wall.  I used about 1/4 yard of it to form the longer ruffle, and found some silk georgette that I had ordered months ago to add a bit of spice as the top ruffle.

This was my first experience with silk georgette, so I did some experimenting.  I recall reading somewhere that tissue paper was great to use as a tear-away stabilizer, so that's what I did.  It made sewing this stuff infinitely easier!

Because the georgette was so slippery, I decided to forego my handy-dandy ruffler foot, and I used the two-lines-of-basting technique to gather it.

Before gathering, however, I finished the edges on my serger with a narrow rolled hem.  After a bit of practice and adjustments to my machine (on scraps, of course), my rolled hems came out beautifully!  

Once I had gathered them to the correct lengths for the hem of my skirt, I overlocked the two ruffles together at the top.  This made it so much easier to attach them to the skirt, as the corduroy gave some body to the ruffles, and I didn't have to worry about the georgette slipping all over the place.

On my ruffles, I made sure to match up seams, so I could then match the ruffle seams to the side seams of the skirt.  I pinned, then stitched the ruffles on the underside of the existing skirt hem, using navy thread and a straight stitch. 

Voilà, a great new flirty skirt to wear anywhere!