Polka Dot Cottage: From Grandma’s table to my hips

From Grandma’s table to my hips

Posted August 3rd, 2009 by

Ingredients for the skirt I wanted to make

I’ve had a small pile of fabric set aside for the last three months. In that stack was:

  • two thrifted pillowcases in a lovely pink, yellow, and aqua stripe
  • a roll of polka-dot grosgrain ribbon in dark brown and aqua
  • my grandmother’s tablecloth, white with a yellow, pink, and aqua floral border

These were to be the ingredients for a wraparound skirt a la Green Sewing.  I was in love with the way the fabrics looked with each other, and I daydreamed about putting them together into a skirt that was pretty, resourceful, and reminded me of my grandma.

Fast-forward to tonight, when I was finally ready to cut into the precious tablecloth. I read the materials list in the book.  Now, you might be thinking that this is a step I should have taken three months ago when I first got my heart set on this project.  And you’d be correct.  Had I done so, I’d have known right from the start that there was not enough fabric in that tablecloth to make a wrap skirt.

What a bummer.  I had really loved how all of those fabrics worked together.

New skirt from vintage tablecloth

Still, I didn’t want to give up on the idea of repurposing the tablecloth, so I turned to my trusty elastic-waist skirt pattern and made the same thing I always do.  There’s a reason I always fall back on this pattern, I guess – it works for me.  I like it a lot.  And with enough different fabrics, it doesn’t have to look like the same skirt on repeat.

I like how the floral pattern begins to creep up the sides at the seams.  It’s a nice effect, I think.

New skirt from vintage tablecloth

I plan to enjoy wearing my grandmother’s tablecloth – I only wish I had more of her linens to play with.  There’s something special about using materials that have a history.  While I don’t specifically remember this tablecloth, I do know that this is the style she used to have at the kiddie table.  All of the little stains I bleached away tonight were probably courtesy of my cousins, my siblings, myself, and countless bowls of grandma-made spaghetti.

I love that.

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