3 Long Skirts, Upcoming Reveal, & It's June Already?

How did that happen?  1/2 way thru 2013 almost!?  

First of all, I wanted to show you the latest vintage sewing gadget I just got from ebay, a Dritz Skirt Marker, in perfect condition.  See the cork at the bottom (the circle)?  It's for pins!  Cool, huh?  There are a lot of skirt markers out there (old and new) that combine wood & metal, but I wanted this older one, which is mostly wood.  (The Roommate & I have a weakness for wooden items, because they tend to be handmade--and seem warmer/cozier.)  

And to the right you'll see a picture of the Skirt Marker in action, which should get you all excited for the big reveal.  I'll get the Roommate to help mark the hem for the dress I'm copying, and with any luck I'll have a new summer dress to wear to work next week!  

It does seem like summer may finally be here (up in the 90sF this week) so I brought up my summer dresses yesterday (another finally is appropriate here).  I think I brought them up in March last year!  No complaints...it's nice to have a long lovely spring.  

And speaking of Abu Dhabi, when bringing up summer dresses yesterday, I found 3 long (ankle-length) linen skirts I used to wear all the time when I lived & worked in the UAE, Oman & Turkey (detail of the fabric in the 3 photos at the left). They just seemed appropriate there.  

I wore them with sandals, but having my legs covered served 2 purposes:  protected me from the sun (I wore long-sleeved, light jackets a lot, too) and showed some respect for my employers and students.  I never covered my hair (I tried it once at a party and was amazed how quickly I was hot & sweaty), and since I'm not Muslim, that was never expected.  More important was to dress modestly.  I always feel like there's so much of me anyway, plus I do NOT tan, so dressing modestly was never a chore.  

Now, back in the USA...I still dress fairly modestly, but I can't imagine wearing an ankle-length skirt, unless I was going as a gypsy to a Hallowe'en party!  So I am planning to cut these off by about 18".  They are all linen, and the light one and the black one are lined with lovely thin cotton.  

Mohammed made the brown one for me, while the other 2 are Liz Claiborne. (Were these ever sold outside the Middle East I wonder? Hard to imagine a market for ankle-length linen skirts in Europe or the US...)  Needless to say the sewing is quite nice on all of them & that's one reason I haven't done anything with them, though I've been back in the US for almost 4 years:  I hate to ruin someone else's lovely hemming & chain-stitched lining tacks...knowing full-well I won't do nearly as nice a job.  My mom is lucky she doesn't live closer--her handwork is amazing.  All those tiny stitches--exactly alike.  

And here's one example of that amazing work, on a store-bought item: 

And here's Sunni, from A Fashionable Stitch showing how to make a thread chain w/ a machine or serger, though I usually make mine by hand.  

I'll be closely examining my new One-Yard-Wonders books to figure out how to use the pieces I've cut off (each approximately 18" x 60")!  It's lovely linen & of course we love fun prints in this family.  

Music; sorry for the pun, but here's Jeff Beck, Hi-Ho Silver Lining.