Category: skirts

Skirt up a tree! A very bare lilac tree, on a sunny winter’s day. It snowed on the morning that I took this, just a little bit, and the rest of the day was bright sunshine. Lovely.

The colour doesn’t show too brilliantly here, it’s actually a lovely green overdyed on top of a gorgeous swirly coral-like pattern. The translucent effect is what happens when you dye over an existing pattern, particularly on a polyester/cotton blend fabric. The dye doesn’t stick to the polyester, so you get a lovely textured effect. In its former life the fabric was a big circular Marks & Spencer tablecloth, and the ruffle is original.

I made it for Sarah of Rainbright Photography, as a very long overdue swap for the gorgeous photo shoot she did for me back in June. (Seven months! Oh dear. Sorry Sarah!)

I find it difficult to photograph skirts – even on the mannequin they look a bit sad because it’s the movement as you wear them that brings them to life. This one has pockets (of course!), and the waistband is elasticated at the back so it should be super comfy. With leggings or nice thick tights underneath, it will be nice and warm for the impending cold weather – not that winter is putting Sarah off from getting outside with her camera. If you follow her on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll see lots of gorgeous winter portraits, and there’s even a special package where you can book a set of photo shoots across all four seasons!

I made a couple of simple skirts for my niece this Christmas. As is often the way, I was lured over to Elephant in my Handbag, who have some excellent novelty prints including this fabulous Peter Pan design by Sarah Jane for Michael Miller. 

While I was there, I also snapped up the very last piece of this gorgeous border print featuring Peter Pan, Wendy, John and Michael (and Michael’s teddy bear, just hidden around the side!) flying over a London cityscape. 

They really are the simplest little skirts to make. I know I’ve said this about a lot of things, but I really must write up a tutorial for you sometime. For a skirt that will fit a child up to about age seven or eight, all you need is half a metre of fabric and enough elastic to go around their waist. Easy peasy! 

I’ve lost count of how many of these little skirts I’ve made for her, but I absolutely love seeing pictures of my niece wearing them. It warms my heart that she’s almost eight, and still (for now) happy to wear things that her silly Aunty makes. 

These photos are from 2007 again – when I first got really into making clothes from recycled fabrics, and especially from novelty prints. This fantastic Paddington design made this a-line skirt and, if I remember correctly, a pair of pyjamas too! 

This is another one that I made for myself, and wore until it was threadbare. I made it specifically to wear to a job that I took at my husband’s office, working with the web development team. I was devastated that nobody noticed it was a Star Wars print until I pointed it out!

I’m almost ashamed to say that these skirts didn’t have pockets. They’re just a very simple knee length a-line style, with no waistband, and a zip at the centre back. If I were to make them again, they would most definitely have pockets – maybe in the side seams, maybe jeans style.

Is this something you’d like to see added to the website, perhaps?

Please excuse the teeny-tiny picture – this photo is from 2007, when my digital camera apparently had fewer pixels than my phone does now! 

This was my very favourite skirt for years and years, and I wore it until the elastic gave out and the fabric went very thin indeed. I called this a “stealth goth” skirt, because it looked so colourful and pretty from a distance that it usually took people a long time to notice that the design was actually skulls!

This one was a very close run second – and I think the first skirt that I ever made from an old duvet cover. The print is space travel, and features carefully labelled astronauts, space craft and planets. 

The reason I stopped making these skirts is that the frilled elastic I used for the waistbands has been discontinued. There is a similar one now available, but it isn’t as soft, and it’s three times more expensive, which adds quite a lot onto the cost of the finished skirt. I’m still thinking about whether that’s going to be a viable option for the future. I’ve been using up the last few little elastic scraps to make skirts for my niece, but I’ve very nearly run out altogether. 

The other nice thing about making skirts for my niece is that I can use licensed fabrics, which I don’t do for eternal magpie unless the customer supplies them to me.

(There’s a huge grey area about what you can and can’t make with licensed character fabrics, particularly now that Star Wars belongs to Disney, who are very hot on preventing infringement.) 

I’d originally bought this fabric – which glows in the dark! – to make a dress for my niece and a pair of pyjamas for my husband. Then my niece decided that she’d rather have a skirt, and my husband decided that glow in the dark pyjamas might be a bit disturbing… so I find myself with quite a large piece left over. I know it’s silly, but I have to confess that the temptation to buy some bright orange lining and made myself a ridiculous Hallowe’en dress is extremely strong right now.

Just to be clear, I have been a bad influence on Dott, she has not been a bad influence on me! 

Way back in the mists of time, I made a dress and a corset for Dott, from a vintage Dennis the Menace duvet cover. After a more recent conversation about making things from duvet covers (a topic always close to my heart), Dott bought this fantastic red and black one, and made herself a skirt! 

It’s self-drafted, pattern-matched at the side seams, and of course it has nice big pockets! Head on over to Dott’s blog, to see more photos and details of how she made it. Isn’t it brilliant?