The pretty much free skirt!

  I'm kind of a beginner at this sewing stuff so to most people, this is an easy skirt to make, but to me, it was one hell of an accomplishment! Since I stick with simple projects for now as I've been teaching myself to sew for the past several months, I won't give you instructions on how to make this... unless you actually did want to know how and I'd love to! However, I am learning absolutely everything on my very own and it can be tough! I went into crafting knowing zero. I simply do what seems possible for me and I have nearly ripped every hair out of my head on some projects, but the ones that do turn out well are so worth it!

  First, no I was NOT picking a wedgie or scratching my booty in that first pic! I was actually adjusting my leggings underneath when my lovie decided to snap the pic. How nice of him? It's the only picture thought that really showed the blue colors so I went with it rather than putting it back on and taking more pics.

  THIS, my darling lovelies, is a Sand Mountain kind of skirt! You know, the ones you make without spending a single penny! Ha. That's right. I made this skirt for nothing. Well, I actually made it to wear because I thought it'd be really funky and cute, but I paid absolutely nothing to make it.

  You may have to pay for fabric if you don't have any on hand that you can use, but you can do this without buying anything else! YES, I'm a Sand Mountain cheapie! LOL.

  A couple of weeks ago A (12 year old) came in with his shorts around his ankles (strangely this is not an uncommon occurance at our house. We're tryin' to break him.) Ha. Ha. Anyways, we made him pull his shorts up. He did and then stuck his hand up the leg of the shorts and I heard ripppping. I asked what on earth was going on inside there and after a minute of tugging and a lot of ripping sounds, from the bottom of his shorts leg, out came this horrendous pair of boxers all torn up! Ha. Ha. He had been wearing them with a rip and then he was playing and ripped them all over.

 While he dangled his boxer shorts proudly in the air with a crap-eating-grin on his face, the genuis idea came to me! I snatched em' right out of his hand and went to work. He said "hey! I was gonna throw those away. They're ripped and you cannot fix them with your sewing machine and make me re-wear em'!" Ha. Ha. I always sew up his jeans when they rip and unfortunately, this too is a very common occurance at our house. I swear, the kid rips his jeans at least once a week! So he thought I was going to fix those underwear up and make him wear them! It was hilarious, but no, my friends. No. I had a much better idea in mind.

What do his underwear have to do with my tie dye skirt? Hee. Hee. HEE. Instead of using the last pack of elastic I had on hand, I grabbed my X-acto knife and cut the elastic band right out of his torn up underwear! We are the same size so I get really lucky on these sort of projects! Or when I've not washed my own clothes in a month and laundry day leaves me with no clothes. 

The tie-dye fabric was actually yards long and my lovely grandmother who has supported my crazy-ass craft journey, donated a box of VERY old fabric she had at her house. The tie-dye, I fell in love with. Which brings me to another sweet story, but I'll cut it short, promise. This same tie-dye fabric is believed (by me) to have been my mother's when she first moved out of my grandmothers home and in with my father! That's what makes this fabric so cool to me. My lovely mom had told me a story about how when she was young she took on sewing too and her first project was tie-dye curtains and well, judging by her story and the huge chunk of fabric my grandmother gave me, this was more than likely my mom's when she was barely 20! That's old for fabric and how neat that it's been handed down and all?

So I measured the length I wanted and nearly doubled the width as I wanted this skirt to be kinda scrunchy. You can see I didn't make it large enough in the waist to get the amount of scrunch there I had wanted, but that's OK. It's better than my first try at the skirt! I had cut it so small that it would fit my waist, but not my rear! Ha. Ha. I decided to use that piece that was too small to make my precious Buggy (my 2 year old neice) a matching skirt! Then Miss Molly who's 7 will have one as well! These ladies will be matching me. Maybe that's lame, but I think it's cute. 

After getting the right size cut, I hemmed the edges and stuck a large safety pin in one end of the elastic I got from A's torn undies. Lol! Oh, oops. I almost forgot. I actually sewed a little pocket (fold the fabric at the waist down so the elastic will have a little pocket) And THEN I put my pin through the underwear elastic and inched it through the "pocket" I sewed and bam! I had myself one cute, somewhat scrunchy skirt! 

After that last paragraph I totally realized that God clearly did not intend for me to write instructions on things. That was all jacked up! Lol. If you did happen to want to try this project and had questions, I promise I'll be able to answer them without leaving things out. Lol.

So, that my friends, is the story of my pretty much free skirt! How nice? It's certainly a story to pass down to our kids!