Wednesday 11 February 2015

Mending a Petticoat

I often wear some sort of petticoat under my skirts and dresses. I like the feeling of layers; it makes the skirts fall in a nicer way, and prevents my legs from getting tangled in them. One of the ones most frequently worn was made from an old curtain with a pinked flounce, which I picked up at a charity shop several years ago. 

Once it looked this pretty.

The pinked hem has literally been worn to shreds, and I’ve been meaning to do something about that for a while, but as it’s hardly ever seen, mending it would be so boring compared with making new things, and so it just never got done. 

And then life happened. Disgraceful.

But then I joined the Facebook group Garderobsutmaningen (the Wardrobe Challenge), where you are supposed to update your wardrobe by every means possible, except by buying newly produced clothes, as a means to do both your appearance, your bank account and the environment a service. Re-purposing fabric, dyeing, embroidering, altering, swapping, mending and so on is encouraged. As I’ve seen all the other things people have mended I felt more ashamed than usual about my own unsightly petticoat hem, and decided that enough was enough. So today I cut of the worn piece, and made a simple turned hem instead. I chose to do it this way, as it protects the pinked flounce still there from being torn.

Ready to be worn again, without shame.

So that’s one meaningful thing done today. Be prepared to hear more about this challenge - my wardrobe do need a bit of work. Fun as it is with period and fantasy clothing (I haven't come across anything that can beat it yet), it's also nice to look good when going about ones day to day business...

2 comments:

  1. Happy outcome, there, a very fresh-looking petticoat!

    Glad to see that challenge! It should be more normal to reuse and to mend. My family has always mended things that break or that tear, and I still do because it makes me feel so guilty and shiftless to throw something away that's otherwise just fine. DH is pretty much the same way. So -- sheets and blankets and clothes are mended, chips and breaks are glued, tools repaired, toys get replacement parts, the worn-out is repurposed. It's too bad that electronics can't be treated that way...

    Very best, and looking forward to more on the wardrobe front, and sure wish I was brave enough to wear petticoats,

    Natalie

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  2. Just do it - I wear full skirts as a rule, so wearing a petticoat under them is not that weird to me... :)

    I mend a lot of things as well - can't just throw things out because of a small tear or some such. I never really documented it before though, but hopefully doing so might help others start mending instead of spending.

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