Happy New Year post!

A belated Happy New Year, we're all back at work now. It's been all change here, with new job and new car on one side, and a complete company rebrand on the other meaning we don't really know whether we're coming or going.

Where do you work now?

Eeerrm... just give me a sec, it'll come to me...

In line with this new name came a new look and we no longer have a smart dress code in the office. Cheers went around the room. Huzzar! We can finally wear jeans and a t-shirt! I was less excited about the news having spent my Christmas vouchers on two new work dresses. Plus - and here is the real nub of the issue - several hours of confusion making myself a pencil skirt.

Now when am I going to wear it?!

Anyway, I'll give you a little run down on this now entirely redundant skirt. It started life as a pair of trousers. Now, although I do love a good pair of jeans, I just don't like work trousers. I always get that horrible feeling that I look like I should be at school. And considering I wasn't the coolest ice cube in the freezer, that's not an entirely pleasant vibe. So not wanting to throw them away, I decided to breathe new life into them.

As you can see, not the most flattering of trousers. Why do I always convince myself wide-leg will look good on my spindly pins? I started by pulling the hems down and then unpicking the stitching along the inside seams and the crotch. I then got out my pins (the other type) and set about raising the waist, lowering the hip-line and pulling together the old inside seams to create a basic skirt shape. I also moved the zip fastening from the front to the side, but I left the buttons at the front for a bit of detail.

After - carefully! - trying it on, I shuffled some of the pins around and then put a tacking stitch in bright red so I could see it and unpick it once I was finished. After that I took to the sewing machine and, slowly at first, stitched along the red line I'd left.

Once done, I tried it on again to make sure I'd not made any major mistakes and it fitted! Amazing! The next step was to iron it and hem it - possibly the trickiest bit. I hate hemming. I made a mistake here by accidentally sewing wrong side up, which means the dark grey bobbin thread was on show, rather than the matching mid-grey thread (I was too frugal to throw away what was already on the bobbin). However, I think it actually looks quite good and I think I may sew another line a little bit above it to echo the stripes on the waistband. But here is the finished item -

Please also note my beautifully festive Christmas socks! I think I did a relatively good job for a pretty major project, but I'll have to wait until my next job to actually get round to wearing it for work.

That's your lot for now - happy sewing!

Phili x