Pinafore upcycle :: A DIY skirt from a favourite dress

In the depths of my WIP box, I found a pinny. A well loved little linen pinafore from the now defunct TillyTom, made from some of my favourite Echino linen. It had lost a button, and, well, mending isn’t eaxctly one of my favourite jobs, so into the box it went for “another day”…until one day was too late and the size 1-2 pinny wouldn’t fit the almost-five-year-old any more. Well, not as a pinny, anyway…

Way back at Camp Coochie last year, Car and I were talking about these pinafores, and upcycling them into something our bigger girls could wear. When I pulled it out of the box, I had a pretty clear idea of how I could turn it, quite easily, into a skirt. While it wouldn’t work as a pinafore anymore, Madam Butterfly is a skinny mini and it would work perfectly as a skirt (in fact, it is actually a little bit big, thanks to her lack of backside!)

It was a super quick 15 minute job, so I’m not sure why I kept putting it off, I mean aside from the fact I am an epic procrastinator and will procrastinate on even the fun stuff.

First up, I removed the straps. I did think about keeping them as a sash-type set up, but lots of use had seen them start to bunch up a bit, and they weren’t in great shape. I could’ve unpicked the seams and removed them that way, but then I would have had to restitch the entire waistband top stitching, so I used my very pointy very sharp thread snips to clip the fabric right along the seam line. I figured if it worked it saved me time, if it didn’t work, I could go back to the unpicking idea.

With the straps gone, my next move was to close up the buttonholes. I pinned them so they butted together, to avoid gaping as I sewed, and then just zigzagged back and forth a few times to close them up. I used a short stitch length and a large width, so it would go right across both sides of the buttonhole, and not leave too many gaps.

To finish off, I needed to disguise the sewn up button holes, and figured, hey, why not, decorative buttons! Though one has already fallen off so I’m going to rethink that. Maybe a contrasting belt? Maybe some little flowers? I’m not sure. If you’ve got any grand suggestions, let me know!

And voila! A “new” skirt, in funky linen, that the girl loves. We’ll call that a win!