I am petite, a whopping five feet tall when I stand up straight. Because of this I learned to adjust my clothing at a young age. To make a long story short, I had a pair of jeans that I’d hemmed too short. I don’t know if I mis-measured or mis-cut or grew (haha, right) or what, because they weren’t always too short, but they are now. Anyway, I was torn between making them into capris or a lace skirt. While I might be wishing I’d chosen capris this summer, I went with the skirt.
– Sewing Machine
– Scissors
– 1-1 1/2 yards of Lace
– Chalk or sewing marker (optional)
– Flip the skirt inside out. Match up the inseams of the pants and pin them together. Then draw or pin a line that extends from the bottom hem up to the top hem. See the yellow line in the photo below. Sew your pant legs together along that line.
– Cut a triangular piece of scrap fabric that will fit in the opening of the front inseams. Then cut layers of lace to fit across the scrap triangle. Each layer should slightly overlap the last layer to hide the stitching.
– Sew the layers of lace on your triangular fabric. Start at the top layer and then stitch each layer down then move to the next layer. If the lace gets in the way, secure it with a pin or two so you don’t stitch over the bottoms of any of the lace layers.
– Turn the skirt inside out. Pin the triangular fabric to the front inseam of the skirt. I used a zigzag stitch to sew the fabrics together and hem the inseam of the jeans. The jeans I used are a stretchy fabric and the zigzag stitch will be less likely to pull or break. It will also help keep the jeans from fraying. If your pants do start to fray, apply a thin layer of Liquid Stitch to stop it. I usually only do that if I have problems later on though. Iron down the seams.
– Hem the bottom of the lace skirt with a fold over hem and then iron. You could attach another strip of lace around the bottom of the skirt and sew those together with another zigzag stitch. I was running out of lace.
