Jeans-to-skirt refashion and Natasha's cooking clothes

I read a lot of blogs. More than the ones on the sidebar. My bookmarks bar is crowded with sewing and knitting and cooking and baking and crafting blogs of all natures. Whenever I'm on a particular kick (sewing at the moment, if you couldn't tell), I tend to write posts that mimic those I see on one-topic blogs. I want to have a blog of each kind. But I'm too scattered, and not focused enough on one hobby, to really do that. Which is why this blog is so inconsistent. I probably alienate 90 percent of my readership every time I post. Sorry about that.

ANYWAY.

"Refashion" is a word that crops up a lot in mama sewing blogs. It means taking your old unloved clothing and making it into something fabulous. So, inspired by this and this, I set to work. I pulled out a pair of hastily bought post-baby jeans (you know, the ones that look great in the store but stretch out ridiculously after a couple hours of wear ... why can't they make inexpensive women's jeans without spandex anymore?) that were headed to the refugee bin. They looked like this:

First I ripped out the seams on the hems.

Then I cut with my pinking shears (figured it would save a step later, but it didn't, so I won't be doing this again). Also, I ended up undoing that leg seam later anyway to get some extra fabric, and because I had already cut there, I lost 3/4 of an inch that I really could have used in the length of my skirt. If I do this again I'll just rip the seams out instead.

When I was all done, I ended up with two of these (you can see I ended up taking out the back pockets too, to eke out just a bit more fabric).

I didn't take pictures of the rest of the process, but here is the result, which I'm pretty happy with.

(Don't let the sunshine or my light attire fool you. It's still winter here. Right around 32 degrees.)

And I finally got Natasha to pose with her cooking ensemble, which I sewed earlier this week (OK, "pose" might not be the best word to use here):