Last weekend was more Busy Lizzy than Sew Busy Lizzy. Fear not I managed to squish in a bit of sewing – a remake of an old skirt but a new sewing challenge for me.

Maytime markets outing – in my beloved Vogue 1247, aka the Tardis Skirt!

I spent half of Saturday folding up other people’s old clothes for the school’s Maytime Markets. I should count my lucky stars I wasn’t the store organiser who spent weeks picking up clothes and sorting them into sizes etc. Saturday was back-breaking work and quite overwhelming. There was hundreds and hundreds of pieces of clothing from babies through to old lady stuff, hand bags, belts, hats and more. Yes I thought it sounded like paradise as well… until I was faced with helping stack them into some sort of order in a classroom! Sunday was spent at the markets helping ‘man’ the stall. It was a hoot, people went bananas, most things were $1 and the ‘fancy’ stuff was $2 or $3.I confess I did bring home the odd thing or two…

maybe three or four…

coulda been five or six…

ok I lost count!

However I did buy two skirts that were huge on me – purely to chop up and remake into something new. One of the skirts was brand new with tags still on. Neither of them were ‘fancy’ brands but I loved the patterns and figured it would be a cheap experiment. At $1 and $2 each I threw caution to the wind.

So I bought this…

Maytime Markets Skirt No 1. Too big for me! Purchased for the princely sum of $1

I am saving the second post for another post : )

damper – Jabba the Hutt of the food world.

I loved this fabric. It’s from a cheap nasty chain store and the fabric is not fabulous quality. Still the colours and pattern really appealed to me and there was quite a bit of fabric without seams running through it so it looked promising for an overhaul.

The original skirt needed about 10cm (4 inches) taken out of the waist and in my former pre-Sew Busy Lizzy life I would have just tossed it aside with a sigh of regret. I felt it was just too big to alter successfully – and full skirts just made me look like a little dumpling – I’m sure they are delicious but they are not the most visually pleasing of food items. And anyway Aussies are more damper than dumpling people (which looks like the Jabba Hut of the food world – although tastes excellent out of the camp fire, covered in charcoal with lashing of butter and golden syrup…).

Simplicity 2451, source http://www.simplicity.com/p-4470-misses-skirts.aspx

But no more! I took it home at the end of the markets and promptly set about destroying it with vicious glee. I was very upset when the zip broke as I had wanted to make this a total remake but it wasn’t to be. The zip went to stitching heaven and I got a new one for about $1.50. Alas.For the last couple of weeks I had been wanting to try out Simplicity 2451. It’s had gushing reviews and it’s as cute as a button. However I am loathe to try out a new pattern when I’m never quite sure if 1) it’s going to have fit issues or 2) the design will suit me – and I hate to waste fabric! Then along came Maytime Markets Revisited Skirt No. 1 – match made in heaven. With some jiggling and squeezing I managed to get all the pattern pieces out of the main skirt, I ended up having to do an extremely dodgy piecing job for one of the pockets…

Maytime Revisited Project, Skirt No. 1 – the dodgy pocket. Made using Simplicity 2451, view D

and used the skirt’s original lining for the inner pockets…

Maytime Markets revisited skirt project – the pocket lining made from the original skirt’s lining

I did rush through this project – I did not bother too much with finishing the seams. To be honest I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did! I’ll go back and pink the exposed seams. I saw this as an experiment and a challenge, fortunately a successful one!

And here is the somewhat-smaller-than-the-original Maytime Markets Revisited Skirt No. 1 which I have nickname Cheap & Cheerful. It’s been a busy week so have not had a chance to get out of my work clothes and into this for a photo (it’s dark so early now and cold!) but I will take one over the weekend as I really like this one (IMHO)

Cheap & Cheerful Skirt. My Maytime Markets revisited skirt project – ‘my’ finished skirt using Simplicity 2451