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Time: 3h00

How to turn an old pair of denim shorts and an old skirt into a new skirt.
I had a pair of denim shorts that once upon a time I did wear for the summer - but my time for short shorts has long gone, but for some reason I did not bin the shorts (although I did try to give them away - but they came back anyway - I guess no-one else wanted to wear short shorts!)

So I decided to try to combine them with a completely impractical white skirt in the wrong waist size that my mum sent me to create one denim/cotton skirt that I would actually wear.

Posted by Absinthe Fairy from Francestown, New Hampshire, United States • Published 10th April 2010 • See Absinthe Fairy's 2 projects »

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Step 1
First step was to cut up the shorts to create a skirt effect. I did this by removing the crotch and then pinning and sewing the front piece at an angle and the back to level out the hem. I kept the hem from the shorts because it has a lovely frayed effect.
Step 2
The white cotton skirt was then pinned to the waistband of the denim skirt and I followed the hem line of the denim, pinning to the white skirt underneath.
Step 3
As the denim skirt is made from a pair of shorts the hem line is not straight and the back is slightly longer than the front, due to this I decided that the easiest way to measure the cotton skirt length was to simply pin one over the other rather to then trying to do lots of fiddly measurements to get the skirt the same length front and back.
Step 4
I then machine stitched the white skirt to the denim, just above the hem line of the denim skirt, then folded the cut cotton skirt hem under to create a double hem to prevent it from fraying and ran another set of machine stitching above the first to create a double row of stitches. I just used a denim blue to match the colour of the skirt rather than trying to emulate the yellow jeans stitching.
Step 5
Then just to add a bit of decoration to the plain white cotton skirt, at the hem line there were some stitched flowers just in white, so I added some blue ribbon rosettes for the flowers and picked out the leaves in green embroidery silk.
Step 6
Once again I realise that by the time I come to load the photos and write this up - I have not taken a photo of the finished item.

With the skirt, two vests, and a cardigan on the way - I have the start of my summer wardrobe.

I am just adding this final photo of the final touches to the skirt - if only to show the sheer disorder in my embroidery box - and to prove that I do not organise everything!