Summer wardrobe - cheap skirt - quick fix

Here I am in the Boho chic (aka Hippie) skirt I bought last week at Venice Beach, LA.  Read story here. Admittedly this was an impulse buy. And I always figure, if I like something, I can fix any sewing or fitting problems when I get it home. 

BUT! I must have been drunk with the California sunshine because the sewing and proportions on this skirt are much, much worse than I realized at the time. The saleslady was charming and the mirror in the store bad. But, I still really like the prints, so it is worth the time to fix.

You can see in my first picture, that the yoke (upper tier) is much too long and I think the over all length is simply too long for a day dress.  I would keep tripping on it.

And this charming saleslady with a lovely French accent convinced me it could be worn like this as well ... HA HA ... maybe if I were 24!

So, I am going to shorten the upper tier, fix some of the horizontal elastic stitching and re-hem this skirt AS QUICKLY AS I CAN. 

Simplicity has me on a very tight deadline this week. (not complaining, at all, just saying)

To figure home much to shorten the top, I roll down the elastic, until I like the proportions and put a pin where I want the bottom of the elastic to be.

This amuses me.  Look at the really nice self-fabric hanging loops they put in this skirt, while the rest of it is sewn like s--t!

See how the rows of elastic stitching don't match up, except at the bottom.  Good thing I will be taking out several rows of the un-matching stitching ... but I digress.

I intend to reuse the elastic. And when I pull it out I can see it is 1" wide.

So I will allow 2 1/2" above the pin I placed where I want the BOTTOM of the elastic to be. The upper pin is the cut off point for all around the top edge of the skirt.

Now I start pulling out the unwanted rows of elastic stitching.  The elastic come out fairly easily.

And once I find the exact spot to release the chain stitch, the rest of the stitching comes out pretty quickly, too.

And look at this ... I thought that elasticized stitching was white, but no, it's lavender.  

Surprise!

I have to digress back to the bad sewing again briefly.  Some of the elastic stitching I wanted to keep had come loose ... grrr.  So, I tied the ends with a square knot ... the most secure.

I then whip stitched over the elastic thread from the inside. Note that this is one of the rows of stitching that DIDN'T match up at the seam.

After trimming off the unwanted fabric all around the top, it's time to press the new waist elastic casing.  I fold down the top edge 1 1/2", press and pin.

Because I have VERY little time to deal with this, I insert the elastic while I'm sewing. This saves me the time and trouble of guiding the elastic into the casing with a safety pin.  That operation can take a long time!

When I get to the point where the elastic is shorter than the casing, I lift the presser foot, while leaving the needle down in the fabric and pull up the elastic out some, so I can continue to sew the casing. When finished I, of course, sew the ends of the elastic together, even out the fullness and close up the remaining opening in the casing.

I hate the white thread used to stitch the hem. And this IS white not lavender.  Usually I would take out this row of white stitching, press all the folds flat and re-hem it, but not today ... NO TIME.

This time I simply roll the existing hem twice around and re-stitch with black thread.

Works great and gives a little extra body to the hem.

Now I'm happy with this skirt.  It will be a good traveling skirt.  I can roll it up in the corner of my suitcase.

You know, I always swore I wouldn't be like the older ladies who wear their hair in the same style they did in high school.  For the most part, I try to keep up with modern fashions that I think look good on me. But, let's face it.  I went to high school during the Hippie days and I feel very at home in a Hippie skirt. So I'm happy I can now call it Boho and say I'm in fashion!