Just a little shorter

Mousukoshi mijikaku

I think I bought this skirt about 12 years ago at Zara, back when Pumpkin City didn't HAVE a Zara. Probably one of those times when I went to Tokyo for work stuff. That was my thing back then (other than scuba diving). My friend and I would look for chances to go to Tokyo for workshops and conferences. Sometimes we'd have our travel expenses covered, sometimes we wouldn't. We almost always went shopping before/ afterward. My friend was of medium height, moderately busty and had a very slender waist. Me…none of the above. Back then, I didn't understand that clothing off the rack wasn't supposed to fit, so I always tried a few things on and decided I didn't want new clothes, I wanted a new body. But I felt bad about having dragged my friend through the shops in search of the "perfect" item, so sometimes I would just buy stuff to make it seem like I was shopping. Like this skirt.

The color is classic, the pattern is interesting. It's a bias cut on a lightweight fabric that gives it an attractive drape. The skirt was about 10 to 15 centimeters too long. The knee-jerk reaction would have been to hem it, but the hem is serged and rolled. This gives it a pretty "flutter" that regular hemming would remove.

So for a dozen years, it got very little use. When I did wear it, I would roll it up at the waist, cover the rolls with the shirt or sweater, and sometimes put a belt over the rolls to hide and flatten them out. The elastic waist insured its survival during post-pregnancy semi-depression fueled clothing purges (anyone who has given birth probably had one of those).

I finally got tired of rolling…plus, my post-two-baby/ lady of a certain age waistline needed all the help it could get to look flat. So I shortened it at the waist. I marked the "top of waistband" with basting stitches (the basting stitches also helped hold the lining in place during the alteration.) Then I gave it a new elastic waistband. I stitched all around on the "knit" setting of the sewing machine (it's basically a narrow zig-zag stitch).

Now it sits at just-below-knee length, perfectly hiding my middle aged knees but showing the taper at the top of my calves. My current favorite way to wear it is with my olive brown Uniqlo crew neck sweater, beige ponte jacket (part of the skirt suit I bought to wear to the Pumpkin Princess's first day of school) and olive brown heels.

Next up…the jacket I bought last November at H&M for 1500 yen (I think!)