Alterations

 Normally on a Friday morning I'm at a retirement home with a craft group, but yesterday I received a message that there's an event on at the home and we can't use the gazebo. It feels like bonus time! So I thought I'd use the time to do a job I've been 'meaning' to do  - make alterations to a couple of garments I like but don't wear because they're too long. The first is this skirt, which I made a couple of years ago 

The fabric is rather stiff and doesn't drape well, so the long skirt just doesn't look right. I thought perhaps it would work better as a pencil skirt. Of course, I don't want to lose the tatting ( pattern number 80 on page 63 of the Tatted Artistry of Teiko Fujito) or redo the hem, so I decided to cut the top of the skirt off. I used a skirt that I like to determine how much to cut off:

 Snip

 It looks skew here, but is actually fine. I didn't bother to retrieve the elastic, I just redid the casing from scratch:

It looks more A-line than pencil, but I still think it'll be more wearable than the long version.

Then I moved on to this blouse, which I made in 2022:

I've used the pattern several times since, so as with the skirt, I laid a blouse I do like over the top to give me a clue about where to cut:

I cut, turned the edge up, and neatened it. It may not be quite as neat as the lined original, but I will hopefully feel more inclined to wear it. Neat inside but hanging in the closet is not very useful! Here's a before and after pic of the hem: