Shortening

I have been sewing like a mad woman lately. Canning season ended the other month and Dan has been working a lot of evenings, so I've been filling my time with some garment altering and sewing. As soon as I get some pictures, I'll show you my latest project (click here to see what pattern I used). Until then, let me show you one of my projects over the summer.

I spent some time this summer refashioning some of my skirts and dresses so that I would actually wear them. I had two in particular that I wasn't wearing at all, and I figured if I hemmed them shorter, I'd probably actually wear them.

Above is one of the skirts I shortened. I generally like maxi length skirts, but it was the wrong fabric for a long skirt. It's Shwe Shwe, purchased in Swaziland 10 years ago, and I sewed this skirt not too long after that. It's fairly heavy, because it has a tight weave and lots of white printing on top. Long summery skirts need to be lightweight and airy or else they're just too hot for me to wear in the humidity. Plus, it felt too loose and bulky at the hips. So I took it apart and made a shorter skirt with a different pattern. And here's the new version: 

It was a success! I wore it to a family wedding soon after finishing it.

And as a side note, I had to laugh at myself while I was shortening some of my skirts and dresses this summer. Remember when all those postings about modesty were flying around facebook? Here people were talking about how they began to dress more modestly, and I was baring more skin!