Inspiration: Sweden

I love clothes.

("Well, duh," you seem to say.)

Mostly, I love clothes in theory, because my whole life shopping for myself has been somewhat of a nightmare.

I grew up in an awful time for fashion.  Things were big.

Really big.

See what I mean?

I had THREE pairs of those pants, people.  THREE PAIRS.

And I only weighed 100 pounds.

The word ridiculous comes to mind.

So I never really learned to buy things that fit.  I was always wearing a hand-me-down or a fashion faux pas and it took me until VERY recently to just say, "HEY - it's ok if my pants fit me.  It does not mean they are skin tight."

*Actually, I may have gone to the other extreme and tried a pair of jeggings, but hey, you were warned that I don't have great sense when dressing myself*


But sometimes, I try on things I like and that actually look pretty cute.

And when I'm really lucky, I try those things and they are from a store known for it's AMAZING prices.  Like one of my favorites, H&M.

Aside - Does anything bad come from Sweden?

H&M.  Ikea.  Alexander Skarsgård.

Apparently not.

But we are talking about clothes.  Skirts, to be precise.

A few weeks ago I went into an H&M on a return trip from my parents' house.  I really liked this little skirt:

But I wasn't *in luuuuuv* with the patterns available.

And after a few minutes of checking it out, I realized, "HEY!  I can make that!!"

So I did.

Cute, right?  This little blue and coral poppy print was much more what I had in mind for s cute and sassy summer skirt.

Using some 2.5 inch wide elastic, I was able to match the H&M Skirt's most prominent feature.

I'll admit, this ended up just a hair shorter than I planned - but that's because I made the whole thing out of one yard of fabric, and without a real pattern, so I lost a little bit in my "trial and error"-ing.  Overall, I am very pleased with the results.  

I wear this with a coral t-shirt and some super strappy camel wedges.

And no one yet has yelled, 

"STOP!  HAMMER TIME!"