My ex-favourite skirt just became favourite again

Some time ago I went through a phase of using cotton fabric for skirt linings.  I made three skirts this way: a dark brown corduroy skirt I wore for Me-Made-May, a long grey wool skirt also worn for Me-Made-May and a red corduroy Clothkits skirt.

I thought a cotton lining would make the skirts warmer and more comfortable, but it was a fanciful notion.  The problem was that I wear tights with all three of these skirts and the cotton lining sticks to the tights so the skirt doesn’t hang smoothly.  As I walk the skirt bunches around my legs.

The red Clothkits skirt was a special favourite and I loved wearing it, either with a black top or a red floral shirt. Every time I wore it someone gave me a compliment.

The Clothkits skirt came as a kit with a specially designed screen printed panel, thread and zip.  It was an expensive skirt due to the exchange rate and shipping to this antipodean island.  I enjoyed making it and choosing a pretty cotton lining.

Unfortunately, when I washed the skirt (in cold water, line dried) it shrank (as corduroy tends to) by a couple of centimetres.  I had to hem the cotton lining higher to stop it showing.  I found myself being a tiny bit less in love with the new length skirt, made worse by my foolish lining choice.

However, I’ve just unpicked the cotton skirt lining and replaced it with what I should have used in the first place – red satin.  The slightly shorter length doesn’t matter as much now that the skirt sits smoothly when I wear it.  I wouldn’t have fixed it had I not liked this skirt so much.

Before and after skirt lining. It pained me to unpick that beautiful pattern matching (that no-one ever sees anyway).

Lessons learned the hard way.

Cheers!