BWOF 6/2010 skirt 134, Revival of Sloppy College Sweatshirt.

Let it be said that I'm new to the blogging thing.  And therefore, I get going on a project and forget to take pictures as I go and end up trying to retro fit it so you can see what happened.  Here it is the original Oregon State University Sweatshirt.  (PS. I did not pick my living room rug based on my college affiliation)

Now, I graduated in '93, and I'm positive that I bought this either upon exiting the school or some time shortly after so it's a total mystery as to why it says 88 and why it shows XL as the size because it is a large.  At any rate I've had it in my closet for close to 18 years and I never never never wore it even around the house.  About 3 years ago when I moved back to Oregon from California I tried to motivate myself to wear big sloppy collage sweatshirt by cutting the neck a la Flash Dance, but alas it become no more appealing to wear. 

So, I've had in my head for some time to make it into another garment because it's a really great quality Champion thick fleece and if you look in the fabric stores it's nearly impossible to find a brushed fleece in heather gray anywhere.  Along comes the June issue of Burda Style and what do I find in the "sewing and styling" section but a grey fleece skirt and lo and behold there's a pattern for it!  Yippee.  Enter big sloppy college sweatshirt that has followed me around for 18 years and my scissors.  I cut and assembled part of the skirt before I took the above picture but you get the gist that this is what it looked like before I cut it up.  Anyway, I decided that I wanted to use the bottom rib hem for the hem of the skirt so I just layed out the pattern pieces and cut so that I just had to sew the darts and side seams. Magic right? 

The lame part was that in order to do that it meant that I could't get much of the design on the actual skirt piece because it was so long and I wanted it above the knee. And, I thought it was better to have the rib at the bottom then to have the logo XL across my bottom, which it kind of is, but if I wear a shirt untucked you don't see.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this does absolutely nothing for my actual XL a$s, but man is it comfy.   I digress.  So I ditched the pockets even though I did cut them out of leftover black knit and I was going to use the rib as the pattern advises, but because the way the sweat shirt was originally there is a double panel of rib along the side seam so that would be WAY too bulky on my hips and I didn't need the pockets.   The waist is finished with a facing and then the black and gray cording is passed through it for a drawstring.  I just punched holes in the front with my eyelet tool from scrapbook world.  I'm sure they'll frey out at some point.    But it works for now.

And finally because there was only half of the design used for the back panel, I thought I would use the rest to make a little kanga pocket on the front, repeating the rib at the edges of the pocket openings there instead of at the side seam. 

I just applied it flat to the front panel w/a raw edge in the rip n repair sort of manner which makes it OK that the the design is not centered on the pocket but pretty much is on the garment.   Also, I don't have a close up, but the bottom edge of the pocket is not jaged it's just the negative space in the print making look like it is.   

So there you have it the random skirt that I made from an old college sweatshirt and am actually wearing to work today.  We have a pretty casual crew here but I do usually try to step it up.  Then my boss tells me that some peeps are coming from a well know shoe company, that we are doing a collaboration with, today and I'm totally embarrassed that I'm wearing a sweatshirt as a skirt to work when we have a meeting that I didn't know about.  Whatever, they can get over it.    This is the perfect skirt for lounging around, doing laundry, running to the grocery store etc.  AND, this weekend I'm going down to OSU w/my sistas to visit the old sorority and have a sleepover!  So I can wear this skirt while we braid each other's hair and have pillow fights (yeah that's what we are going to do with our time).  Yes, look out Corvallis, we're coming to the Kastle and you will never be the same.  If we can stay up past 10 pm that is..... AND I hope to purchase another college sweatshirt or item that I will actually wear.