Lace and ribbon to the rescue: A historically inspired upcycle

This project began with a lovely burgundy colored satin skirt with a small train. The waist was smaller than the majority of the cast members on my list, so I wanted to make the skirt larger. I began digging in my “pieces of things” box and found a leftover skirt from a previous project to use for extra fabric.

I removed the waistband, and promptly PULLED THE ZIPPER PULL RIGHT OFF AND COULDN’T GET IT BACK ON.

Irritated at myself . . . I quit and went to bed. So fast forward a couple of days, when I had completed a larger project and wanted to work on clearing out some partially finished projects. When I removed the waistband, I had been quite pleased to realize that the back of the skirt had generous inverted pleats on either side of the zipper. If I opened those up, I thought the skirt would be enlarged enough, and I could skip adding in extra fabric.

I needed a longer waistband however, so I split the waistband in half lengthwise, pressing it well. I found a piece of brown wide bias tape and sewed that lengthwise along the strip to make a “back”. I reattached this to the waistband, threaded elastic through, added a bit of hook & loop tape to close the back slit (a zipper would also work), and . . . realized I had put the waistband on my SCRAP SKIRT, and not the one I intended.

double wide bias tape added for a backing

So, OK, whatever . . . a skirt is a skirt and I could do something with this one (although, now I have to come up with a different waistband for my other skirt 😦 ).

Since this was an almos-straight skirt, I just appliqued some wide cream-colored lace along the bottom, and threaded some blue ribbon through the holes (this lace is probably intended to be a valance). The ribbon had a tendency to droop, so I added a row of stitching to secure it in place.