My Recycled Skirts

My girls love to wear dresses or skirts, and I have to reserve some of them exclusively for church, just so they don't get ruined. So, since they're one of the easiest things to sew, I've made just a few for them. Kortney started liking skirts when she realized that no one would stop her when she twirled in them in front of Primary as a sunbeam, and she loved how they looked like a bell when she twirled. Taylor just loves to look cute, and skirts do that for her. Emmrie is just glad that they're not considered pajamas, which means she's allowed to wear them past breakfast.

First, let me just mention that, where my girls' desire came from to wear dresses and skirts outside of church is not from me. I can honestly count on one hand the number of times I wore a skirt or dress to school since the time I was allowed to pick out my own outfits. I couldn't play in a skirt. Skirts were so restrictive, and I had to try to sit like a lady in them. Even when I was in highschool, I think I only wore a skirt once, for Missionary Week in seminary, when we dressed up like missionaries for one day. I'm sure I did it on a dare. Funny how I ended up spending a year and a half of my life wearing a skirt or dress every day in the mission when I was older. It never got to be my favorite, and I still only wear them for church now.

WARNING:

This is seriously about the extent of my sewing skills, much to my Home Ec. major mother's sadness, I'm sure, so please keep that in mind as you scrutinize my finished products.

#3 - My most recent project. We got this little dress from a neighbor friend who outgrew it, but I saw that it had another great potential.

So I turned it into this skirt. Kinda cute, huh? This is a twirler, for sure!

#2 - My second attempt at a skirt was when I was wondering how to use all the girls' old, worn-kneed jeans. I saw a little girl wearing something like this, so I tried it. It's definitely not very cute, and I should've made it more "twirly", but I didn't want to go back and fix it. This is Kortney's, and I made a purple one for Taylor, too, that I had to hide from her, because it seriously was hideous and she wanted to wear it every day. I never got around to doing Emmrie's, yet. It's okay, though. She has no idea it was even in the works.

#1 - My first recycled project. This cute outfit was once a mumu (sp?) that my mom found at Goodwill and mailed to me right after I had Emmrie, because I guess she thought I might want to look as frumpy as I felt. Sadly, I never wore it (okay, only once - to get a laugh out of Neil), but I loved the silky material, and couldn't let it go to waste. At the time, Kortney was just starting to get into dress-up (so funny to think back to when we didn't have a room completely dedicated to dress-up clothing and accessories). The material was perfect for a cute little skirt. I just hacked off the bottom of the mumu and added the waistband. Then, I had so much extra material that I made a little vest to go with it. Don't worry, it's not even lined, and I stole the button and button loop from the mumu. This has now been the favorite dress-up outfit of each of the girls at one point or another, and I think they've all looked adorable in it.

So, that's it for my recycled projects, in the way of skirts. There are blogs and websites all over with these types of ideas. I like to find cute ideas, but then I forget about them. So, let me know what kinds of clothing or other things you've creatively recycled!