A skirt into a skirt--I love my serger!

A few years back I bought this skirt.

It's a long baby cord number and has (had) some great texture.  But alas, since I've lost a bunch of weight, IT WAS SUDDENLY WAY TOO BIG!

YAY!!

But I need a black skirt!  A cute one!  And the one I want is $65.  A project is born and I sense that I will not be sleeping much in the near future.  Or doing much laundry.  And the kids will probably be feeling neglected.  As will the husband. But whatever.  I'm building their independence, right?

Now, a little while back, someone gifted me a serger.  And to that person, I want you to know that I intend to use it until it dies, or when I die, pass it onto my children.  I love that thing. 

I found this awesome tutorial for a ruffled skirt, but didn't have a skirt in my closet that fit to take measurements, so needed a new route to figure out fit.  And then I found this tutorial.  Awesome fit instructions.  Bonus! 

Double bonus that it doesn't need a zipper.  Double bonus because I, 1) didn't have a zipper, and 2) s.u.c.k at installing zippers. 

This is looking good.  Triple bonus already and I haven't even cut into anything!

So, I threaded the serger with black thread, figured out how to use the gathering attachment (the thing rocks my world!) and cut and sewed and serged and got heart palpitations just putting it all together.  And then I got out the seam ripper and ripped some, serged and sewed some more, prayed that I had enough fabric in the skirt to finish, got it all put together minus the elastic and went to bed.

It was roughly 11:30 pm.  Not bad.  And the morning held promise.

Then the boy woke up and required some attention.  So I ended up being up until roughly 1:30 am.  But whatever.  The morning still held promise.

And this morning I finished.  I tried it on, realized that the back ruffle wasn't quite long enough, rifled through my meager stack of leftover scraps, got out the seam ripper, serged, sewed, ripped some more, serged and sewed again, and declared it DONE. 

TA-DAAAAA!

The thing is awesome.  And it goes awesome with my new tights and my awesome black boots.  Grace was my photographer of choice.  Love that kid.

The skirt definitely had "character" since cord is as fragile as it is.  But I like the kind of character it has and I think some of the character might soften in the wash,  We shall see. 

It's not very often that I actually love something I make for myself.  It's true that I love this skirt.  Even if I just look at it and never wear it (which is not my intention since I'm disappointed to not be going anywehere today that warrents me even wearing my skirt, tights and boots) I'd still declare this venture a huge success!

My meager pile of leftover scraps--headed for the trash. 

Grace also commented that my skirt looks like I got it at the store.  I'll take that.  And raise her an awesome ruffly brown skirt for her.  I sense some sleep deprivation coming on.  Oh well.  At least I feel like I'm accomplishing something!