Continuing on the idea of remaking and reworking old clothes into better versions of themselves today I’m posting a quick easy fix I did for a skirt given to me by Celeste. It was super cute and had nothing wrong with it other than the fact the elastic was crunched up and a bit past it’s used by date.
Quick fix: replace the elastic.
What you need:
- The skirt in question
- Flat, thick elastic, same size as is in the skirt already so it fits in the channel
- Scissors
- Needle and thread
|
In most elastic waisted skirts the top is a band which encases the elastic and allows the fabric to bunch up when the elastic is not stretched. In that section there is generally a vertical size seam which will allow easy access to the elastic once you snip the stitches. Locate it and using a very small pair of scissors carefully cut the stitches making sure not to cut or damage the fabric around it. |
Cut the loop of elastic so you have two ends hanging out of the hole. Take your new piece of elastic and roughly stitch it to one of the ends of the old elastic. You could also use a safety pin to pin them together if you have one handy.
Now carefully pull the old end of elastic (the one that’s NOT attached to the new elastic) out of hole in the skirt. What should happen is that as you pull, it will drag the other end of the elastic through and around the casing and it will bring the new elastic through with it. You might need to be fairly delicate pulling it so you don’t damage the hole in the fabric and it doesn’t catch on the inside.
Keep feeding it through and pulling until the good elastic is all the way through. Then detach the good from the bad and sew the two ends of the good together. Make sure they are the correct way around so the whole waist band is flat, you don’t want to have a twisted waist and have to redo it :S Once you’ve stitched them together, push the whole thing back into the skirt band and flatten it out, you should be able to do this by holding the waist from the inside with your thumbs and gently stretching it out so the fabric settles around it.
Stitch back up the hole with the needle and thread.
Done! Now it’s as good as new and has a nice flat (and much more flattering) waist 😀
So this took about 15 minutes to do and saved a perfectly cute skirt ^_^
