pillowcase skirts

I really should have made this post last week but laziness isn't a crime. I have now made four pillowcase skirts (and a shirt and dress last summer). Lately I've been looking at everything as fabric and what I could possibly make out of it. Pillowcases are so ready to be skirts or dresses! This all really started last summer when I jumped more into diy and blogs and that was when I learned about the summer of no pants. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it sooner! Last summer I started wearing skirts and dresses more often but it's so hard to do that when you live in the northeast and summer could be 60 degrees and pouring rain at best. Really- try living in the mountains. I did what I could but one of my jobs was waitressing at an outdoor restaurant and skirts would not have been a good idea but I tried my best with my other job. When this summer approached I kept the idea in mind but Portland is only a little south and way east on the coast. So rain and lots of it. And cool winds. There were times when I just had to wear pants. And then recently I wore fewer pants, but I did sneak in a lot of shorts because it was just so hot, and I unconsciously made it the summer of no pants for me! I love it. I think that was my inspiration to make these pillowcase skirts. I feel most comfortable in skirts and dresses and incredibly feminine but strong and empowered. Almost like I have something to prove by being girly and wearing a skirt but not being a weak and helpless child.

Back to my pillowcases! Once I got all of my materials I looked around for an easy tutorial that didn't involve sewing the elastic. I sew by hand, which takes forever but I seem to break sewing machines easily, and I have no experience sewing elastic. It didn't take long until I found this super easy tutorial and got started right away. If I had a machine it probably would have taken me twenty to thirty minutes tops but because I'm old fashioned and easily distracted, it took almost two hours for one skirt. With the first one I did (the purple one), I only used one pillowcase because I forgot that my waist isn't the size of a small child's so it isn't as fluffy as I wanted but I still like it. If I'm feeling ambitious and have an afternoon to waste, I'll rip part of it out and add the second pillowcase to make it fuller. With the rest I used two pillowcases and they turned out wonderfully. The brown one is a different material though and it came out a bit shorter than I had anticipated because it's stiffer than 100% cotton. But I love them all and I can't wait to make more skirts and dresses!