I have to be honest, my sewjo has been seriously lacking lately. I semi-recently sewed up a replacement pair of overalls and my first pair of jeans in this absolute haze of fiery passion and once I finished them I just felt kinda, done (at least for a while). Both of those projects filled really specific gaps in my wardrobe/craft skills and I was honestly just happy to bask in the glory of adding two well-curated items to my wardrobe.

However, over the weekend I finally tackled a project that I’ve been meaning to do forever (and which definitely fills another gap in my closet); rubbing off a very familiar, very well-loved ready to wear skirt. I reckon I’ve had this skirt for about 10 years. Before I had it, it was my sister’s and before she had it, I’m pretty sure it belonged to her friend. Either way, it definitely doesn’t owe anyone any favours!

I suspect it was a light wash denim when it was new but by now it’s almost white and has acquired an unfortunate stain (of hot chocolate, believe it or not) right down the front of it. It’s a very simple design; an a-line skirt in multiple panels with a jeans button closure down the front. Basically, well within my capabilities to recreate.

Despite this, it’s sat in my “should probably do that” mental project queue for well-over a year – I honestly just hate making patterns from scratch. I’ll happily hack a pattern but I just don’t want to do all the maths from the very beginning. However, knowing full-well I could definitely create the exact the skirt I wanted easier than finding and hacking a similar pattern, I sucked it up and decided to just commit.

Well…

An hour and a half later I had some pattern pieces. I was also exhausted and sweaty and sick of crawling around on the floor converting from inches to centimetres and back again and I still hadn’t even touched my fabric… Thankfully, making the pattern was the hardest part of this make.

(I am obviously well-aware that I should just pick one measurement system and stick with it however, like many metric-country sewists, I measure bodies in inches and fabric in centimetres, which is a system that fails in situations like these).

Also, my hat goes off to all the sewists out there that do this regularly – I do not know how y’all have the patience or the abstract thinking to hold so many concepts/numbers in your head at one time.

I’m really chuffed with how well the skirt came out, and with how successfully I was able to recreate the original. Notable differences included a more pronounced a-line shape (a result of tailoring the pattern to my measurements), different top-stitching, addition of pockets and a centre-back belt loop – most of which (excluding the top-stitching) are big improvements to the original. Unfortunately, my math was not perfect and I had to let the seam allowance out over the hips, which meant I couldn’t do the double line of stitching that the original had, which is a shame. I really wanted to include that to give the skirt that “denim” look but I also think the skirt looks perfectly fine with just the one.

Overall, I’m very pleased that I’ve a) managed to improve on an already proven closet workhorse and b) now have the ability to make infinite versions forever and ever!

How cool is sewing?!