Making Old Skirts New

One of my hobbies is making old clothes, that are not very fashionable anymore, and turning them into something new. If you know how, it's a lot of fun!

I have a lot of old skirts from when I was a young teenager. They're not very fashionable any more and I can't really fit in them. So I decided to make them a little more current. (Please excuse my awkward legs/feet.)

#1 I've wanted to get a layered skirt for quite a while. It is a popular style right now, but I haven't been able to actually find one that isn't ridiculously expensive. So I finally decided to make myself one. I'm not sure how it looks still. It isn't exactly what I wanted, but it was free so it's better than nothing!

Before

After

Basically I pinned the two layers together at the top of the frilly layers. I cut the underneath layer at the top of my knees which conveniently is the same length as the top of the filly layers. 

(When I say frilly layers I mean this.)

I'm not 100% sure about the finished look. Most of the ones I've seen don't have frills or are higher in the front. So the frills may not be the best display of this type of skirt. I don't know yet.

#2 Another one I worked on is a two layered brown patterned skirt. I didn't actually cut it or sew anything I simply tucked the waistband under itself until it was a length I thought looked good.

                                              Before                                              After

#3      I used to be much better at sewing than I am now. I've gotten out of practice. My sewing machine broke several times and I never really got back into it. While I still had it I bought a dress that I wanted to turn into a skirt. Pretty simple right? Yeah, I thought so. Apparently it's not as easy as I thought.

(You can see how long ago it was.)

I bought it at a thrift store and was looking for pattern and not at the material pieces themselves. It turned out that the dress I picked had three panels. One for the skirt, one for the chest, and a separate one for the stomach. So the top seam of the skirt would be somewhere in the stomach panel. Which would require extra sewing for the waist. :/ 

Also there was a zipper in the back. Starting at the top of the chest panel and going all the way into the skirt panel. So, I seam ripped the zipper from the top to where I wanted the top of the skirt to start. I moved the metal prongs on the end of the zipper to where I wanted the zipper to stop. It was a difficult process and I didn't use any kind of tutorial or read anything about how to actually do it. I just kinda flew by the seat of my pants and it worked somehow. 

After I fixed the zipper, cut the extra fabric off the top of the dress. I sewed the zipper on the rest of the way and I hemmed the waist.

 I have a another dress that's white and brown. I never got around to hemming the waist, but I did cut the amount of skirt off that I wanted.


I bought a third dress from the thrift store, that's white with black flowers on it, at the thrift store. I was planning to turn it into a skirt as well. But then I discovered it was a Ralph Lauren dress and I didn't cut it up.