Re-Purposing Purpose

A few months ago I sorted through my closet and cleared out a bunch of clothes I didn't wear/want anymore. I have to admit there were a few items that I knew I wouldn't wear but they were still in great condition making it difficult to toss them into the Goodwill pile. Well, just before dropping off a few bags of clothing and other "stuff" to Goodwill I decided to pull out two skirts that still had a lot of life left in them. I seemed like such a shame getting rid of them and I kept thinking there must be something I could do to salvage them. So there they sat on the floor of my closet waiting for me to come up with some great ideas. Ultimately the great idea I chose to try was to re purpose my old skirts into "new" skirts for my girls ! After several weeks the finished skirts were ready for the girls to wear! Here are a few pics of the skirts - Rian's is the jean skirt/white lace trim and Kami's is the cream color corduroy with flowers:

I saw a similar idea for the flowers on Kami's skirt posted on the website www.oneprettything.com and wanted to try it. All I did was cut out several circles in various shapes from the fabric and then zigzag stitched all around it. I want the material to fray a little to soften the look of the flowers however I do not want to end up with a big knotted mess after a few washes. I did the same for the leaves. Then I stacked a few of the circles on top of one another and stitched a bunch of zigzag stitches in the center. I set the sewing machine stitches to the lowest stitch length my machine has so that it created a flower center. Then I placed the flowers and leaves on the skirt, pinned them in place and stitched around the largest circles of the flower about 1/2 inch in from the outside of the flower petal perimeter. Again I'm hoping for some fraying and wrinkling after several washes which is why I didn't sew the flower onto the skirt right along the largest petals perimeter. Make sense? I took the same approach with the leaves. Overall I was very pleased with how both skirts turned out and have started seeing my old, never to be worn by me clothes, in a whole new light. (watch out Gary your side of the closet is next!!!)