TO short shorts and TWO pillow cases, into ONE cute SKIRT!!

A good friend of mine gave us some clothes for the girls. Included was a pair of shorts....VERY VERY SHORT shorts. SO, I thought that these shorts would make a really cute skirt. Well, the other day at a.... of course:) Thrift store, I found two really nice paisley blue and off-white pillow cases. SO, these items seemed destined to turn into a sweet modest skirt for my daughter:) Here's a QUICK tutorial on how I did it:

First, you need two matching ( guess they don't have to be if you like that look!), and the top of a jean skirt, shorts, jeans etc... I cute maybe one-two inches off these shorts, that's IT! SHOOOOORT shorts!

Cut off as much of the top ( closed ) part of the pillow cases as you want. ( I cut off about 5 inches). Then, cut the seam side open so you have two big rectangular panels.

Sew the two large rectangular panels together. The open part of the pillow cases become the bottom hem of the skirt. Just sew up the sides where you cut them open. I sewed up both sides as well as zig-sag stitched to reinforce.

Now, sew one long stitch across the top of your sewn together pillow cases. DON'T BACK STITCH!!! Start at one seam and go across till just before you hit that seam again. USE THE WIDES STITCH YA GOT! Now, while holding the string at the beginning of the stitch, slide your fabric across the stitch and gather it till it looks semi even and is the same with as the opening of your cut jeans. ( THANK YOU JENI for teaching me this!!) You may want to sew another stitch just below that one in case your first stitch snaps... I'm alittle to impatient for that, but that is the proper way:)

Now, take the jeans top and put it inside the waist line of the skirt, pointing down and make sure the right side of the jean fabric is against the right side of the skirt fabric. Pin, seams together, your skirt around the jean opening. Make sure you have the fabric gathered to the SAME SIZE as the opening.... this is kinda tricky for a impatient person (ME), so it may not turn out just right, but close enough:) Just TRY not to yank on the thread, it breaks EASY and you don't want to have to pin all that gathering where it breaks, TRUST ME!! lol

Now, below the gathering stitch a bit, sew on the skirt to the jeans. Then, pull out the pins.

turn it right side out but with the jean top flipped over like this. I opted to cut do another stitch this way, all the way around, for more secureness ( is that a word??)lol

Then, I cut off the excess pretty close to the last stitching I just did.

Flip the top back right-side out and take a look!! You have a new, COOOOOOL skirt!! What do ya think?? Don't tell Kayla, it's for her 11th birthday in a few weeks!!!