Sweet Potato Party Skirt

Here's OFFCenter's Call For Art for its most recent show:

“Re-Style/Free-Style"
Upcycled Wearable & Functional Art Forum
Clothing • Jewelry • Purses • Accessories & More
Exhibit and Sale displaying creative, upcycled wearable forms of art
Artists are invited to submit unique hair ornaments, aprons, purses, dresses, spring frocks, jewelry, accessories, clothing, spring fashions recreated from our free box or your favorite thrift store, yarn craft from yarn scraps, hand painted shoes, embroidered old jeans, let your upcycled imagination go wild.
Exhibit/Sale up through April 26th

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In my bag of tricks I had stashed seven sweet potato bags from Trader Joe's - knowing that some day I would use them in an art project -- but had no idea for what they would be used.  Great color.  Great texture.

When OFFCenter announced the Re-Style/Free-Style show, immediately my sweet potato bags came to mind.  So, I went to work:

On each bag I removed the bottom seam, then opened up each bag to create a rectangle by gently tearing one side of the mesh out from behind the label, sewed all seven bags side to side to create one giant circle, pleated the waistline, created a tie-back waistband from very wide leftover satin holiday ribbon, and at the hemline of the skirt added about 7 yards of yet more leftover holliday ribbon about 1" wide gathered into a decorative ruffle.

Here's the finished product -- it really brings a smile to my face -- I kind of hoped it wouldn't sell and I could retrieve it at the end of the show, but it indeed did sell.  So, I'm back to eating yet more sweet potatoes from Trader Joe's and collecting enough bags so I can create a Sweet Potato Party Skirt of my own!

Here's the skirt spread full circle.

And here's Houdini, checking out the skirt -- he immediately needs to investigate anything new.

And here's the skirt on a hanger ready to deliver to OffCenter.