Gran's Wool Skirts

My gran was from the north of England. Once, when she went back, she went to a wool mill in Wales, where she bought lovely wool fabric for skirts. She went home and made up three skirts for herself. She wore them until her health was too poor for her to redo them to fit again, and they went into the closet in a clothes bag. Before she passed away, she gave them to me and Mum to rework for ourselves.

We are procrastinators, so they stayed in the bag. I wasn't feeling well myself at that point--something we later discovered to be gallbladder disease--and didn't press the issue of alteration because I felt gross and unhealthy and wasn't the weight I wanted to be at all. When the gallbladder came out and my body became normal again, I'd bring it up, I thought.

Well, finally we pulled them out again and they aren't the wrong size anymore. They are perfectly fitted as if they were designed for me, which is pretty amazing considering that these were made decades ago to fit someone almost a foot shorter than I am.


See? I took a terrible picture for you in my mirror with my cell phone. But the skirt fits perfectly! This is the one that needs no work at all. The plaid fabric close-up I put at the top of the post is of this skirt. I love these boots with this one and the brown plaid, which needs a new hook and eye closure because the eye fell off and the hook has nothing to connect to. So we have to stop by the store to pick one up. (Hopefully a decent one made of good stuff, not of plastic and despair like the awful button kit from the headboard making adventure last month.)

The third skirt, a brown herringbone tweed, has pockets. POCKETS. Mum and I are going to raise the hem on that one a bit (just to the knee), so I can wear it with my new awesome shoes I picked up in Michigan over the weekend.

It will also look epic with my shorter brown boots. Or with the Frye Campus boots I've wanted for ages. Maybe this is the good reason I've needed to start saving my pennies for a pair of my own.

Mum had a pair, but she GOT RID OF THEM. Why would you ever get rid of Frye boots? I am wearing these until they have to be pried off my cold dead feet.

Do you have any suggestions for awesome outfits I can put together with these skirts? I've been looking at lightweight sweaters that people tuck in, blouses with Peter Pan collars--when am I not looking at those?--looser knit shirts, and chambray. I'd love some suggestions.