Sassy Sewing

Sewing isn't really my bag, man. My mom spends many an hour with her foot on the sewing machine pedal, humming along patterns and putting together pillows. I dig the occasional chance to sew, though, and I thought I'd share something I didn't make -- I made it better.

I got this skirt at a legendary Dallas bargain store, called quite appropriately, The $6.88 Store. Everything in the store costs $6.88, including this skirt. It's Isaac Mizrahi for Target, which means it didn't start out at too much more than $6.88, but it was also to the mid-calf (AKA ugly).

I decided to invent a bubble hem and make it a sassy cocktail skirt. It looks great with heels or heeled boots, depending on the occasion and the weather. In Dallas right now, we're struggling to winter-ize our summer clothes, since the highs have been reaching the 80s! So heels it is with this skirt! I guess I should mention how I invented the bubble hem, so others could try the ridiculously easy method I came up with. It's a poofy skirt, meaning that the longer the skirt gets, the more fabric you have to work with, so there is no such thing as just "taking it up" by a few inches, because you'll end up with bunched fabric and some bad looking pleats. So, instead of sewing all the way around the skirt to take up the length, I just sewed a short (as in less than a quarter of an inch) section every three inches, so that the excess fabric length makes up the bubble of the skirt.

All in all, I think it works. I think the sewing method is particularly suited to the fabric of this skirt, which is some sort of nylon/silk blend.