I got this very large, very bright stretchy knit top from the South Woodford branch of Cancer Research for £5. It’s marked XL and as you can see it’s more than a little big on me. When I bought this the Barbara Windsor lookalike behind the counter enquired very suspiciously whether I had tried this on. I told her it wasn’t for me. The flowers were on their own level of awesome but unfortunately one cannot wear such prints so close to one’s face without looking like one got dressed in the dark. This top was going to have to morph into a summer skirt.

First thing to do was to cut off the yoke from the front and twist design from the back leaving a tube of material with wonky edges!

Then very quickly pinned the sides in to make a smaller tube, measuring roughly against my body. I didn’t bother trimming at this stage since I planned to use the overlocker on this project. This machine trims the edge with a very sharp knife before producing a strong seam which stretches and also prevents the material from unravelling.

Here’s a close up:

Here’s the smaller tube with the off-cuts. I cut two long rectangles from the off-cuts to make a waistband out of. These were overlocked together along the short edges to make a circle, folded in half lengthways and overlocked right sides together with the top of the skirt.

And…. finito! This is a really basic skirt with no fastenings (zips etc) made without a pattern, simply using a body measurement to make a tube slightly tapered towards the waist and attaching a waistband. I kept the original hem from the top as you can see in the photo below. This is because I wanted to keep the RTW finish on the hem which is tricky to achieve at home. It could be done with a double needle and some yellow thread, but the missing ingredient is practice on my part. Maybe next time. Anyway I digress…. The skirt is just about long enough however, as an accomplished sewist might say, there is a little too much ‘negative ease’. As my friends might say, it is too tight around the bum.

The perfect outfit for summer in the city!