During #MeMadeMay2019 I realised that almost all my lush Amy Butler pattern Barcelona skirts that I had made over the years no longer fit me! This is due to the weight gain that I have had during the perimenopause. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy with my changing shape although I could do without the aches and pains that seem to have taken over my body and the hot sweats, the brain fog and the emotional roller coaster that I have been on for the past 5 years (when does it end?).

BUT these skirts are made from gorgeous fabrics that I am not ready to get rid of!!! What to do? Well join in with #RemadeMay of course! So I took 4 of the skirts and completely unpicked them to re-use the fabric! Barcelona skirts became Sew Serendipity panel skirts almost overnight! (well not quite overnight, it probably took me almost the whole of May to do 3)

These are the original skirts that I had to work with, so far I have re-made 3 of them.

This is my Grayson Perry skirt – the original skirt fabric is a Grayson Perry design for Liberty Fabrics that features images of his childhood teddy bear – Alan Measles. I had enough of the lovely fabric to do the main front and back panels and 2 patch pockets, the rest is some grey shirt fabric that I had in my stash.

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This is another of the 3, this is a combination of 2 of the old skirts sewn together in panels to make one that fits me! you can see how the skirt is made up from panels in these pictures.

Finally I converted this one from a Barcelona skirt into a panel skirt but I was really lucky with this one as I still had enough of the original material left in my stash to completely re-make it in the same fabric!

I still have a couple of skirts that I have unpicked and have in a pile ready to be transformed so watch this space. I am also looking at ways to make my wardrobe full of By Hand London Anna dresses fit me again – that will be another blog post!