Clothes recycling week...Day 1...Dress to Skirt Upcycling...

To keep myself amused this week I'm going to tackle the mountain that is my fabric stash - lots of it is fabric and lots more of it is clothes that need altering or something mending on them to be wearable again.

Apparently 900, 000 tonnes of clothing is thrown away in the UK each year (thanks, myzerowaste!).

I've had a big clear out of my wardrobes (yes that's a plural on the wardrobes!) and have ebayed some stuff, charity shopped the rest, collected the un-giveawayable stuff (like tights and socks and extremely holey things) to think up uses for later (maybe stuffing for something? Fairy wings from the tights stretched over some wire??!) and kept some things that I really loved but needed to be turned into something more usable - these are the things I'm going to tackle this week!

This dress/tunic thing was in the sales when I still allowed myself into establishments where the word 'sale' is displayed (always deadly) It was down from £10 to £1 so I obviously had to have it, despite it being perhaps the most unflattering item in the history of the universe.


So I'm going to turn in into a skirt. Here's how I did it...

1. cut a little hole through one layer (the layer facing inwards towards your body when you're wearing it)of the material in the hem at top (luckily this dress already had a hem at the top I could use otherwise I would have had to make one first).

2. attach a piece of elastic to a safety pin, thread it into your hole and wriggle it all the way through the hem until it comes out of the hole again. (if you were being v. environmentally friendly you could make a drawstring, maybe out of the straps to tread that through in the same way - but I had the elastic so I may as well use it)

3. figure out how tight you need the elastic then pin the elastic together and sew it.

4. try the skirt on and see how it fits, if it doesn't unpick your elastic stitches and try again, if it does then sew up the hole you made for the elastic.

5. cut off the straps, you could do this first, but I was being cautious, if I didn't like it as a skirt it may have been remodelled into a top instead.

6.If you're me, then dew up the hole you accidentally made when cutting the straps off.
7. Wait for the summer, when a lovely thin cotton skirt will be lovely to wear! As you can see I did try to take a picture of myself wearing it, which is especially difficult if you're reluctant to take off any of your clothes or let go of the blanket you're also wearing cos it's soo cold! So there's a picture of it on it's own too!

See you tomorrow for something else made from something else!