Introduction: How to Upcycle an Unwanted Snood, Into a Cool Knitted Skirt With an Exposed Zip.

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This is my thrifty little instructable on how to turn a snood into a skirt. This is so easy to do! If you have basic sewing machine skills then I'd give it a difficulty rating of 1 out of 5.

You will need:

An unwanted snood.
A nice zip that you're happy to have exposed at the back.
A pair of scissors.
A needle and two rolls of thread, one contrasting colour, one matching your zip.
A sewing machine.

If you have access to an overlocker, this makes any sewing job ten times easier.

Step 1: Step 1: Acquire a Snood.

I was given this Ted Baker snood for Christmas and decided It would look much better as a skirt. Mine is beige obviously but as I forgot to take a before photo I had to swipe this one instead from the Ted Baker web site.

Step 2: Step 2: Take It In.

Turn the snood inside out and try it on as you would a skirt, then mark with chalk where you would like to take it in. Then take it off and overlock/sew with a zigzag stitch along the lines that you've drawn. If you choose to sew rather than overlock, you'll then need to trim the excess fabric, making sure not to cut any of the stitches.

Turn the skirt the right way out again and make sure not to try it on until the zip is in as this could stretch it out of place.

Step 3: Step 3: Attach the Zip.

Lay the skirt flat and place the zip on the centre back. Do not cut the fabric yet!

First, pin the zip into place. Then tack it using a contrasting thread. To tack, thread your needle and sew large stitches around the zip where the needles are holding it in place. This doesn't need to be neat as you'll unpick these stitches later anyway.

Next, remove the pins and thread your sewing machine with thread in a matching colour to that of your zip. Then sew the zip into place using a normal straight stitch. I chose to use a normal sewing machine foot rather than a zipper foot because, since it's an exposed zip, there's no need to stitch so close to the actual zipper.

Finally unpick the contrasting thread.

Step 4: Step 4: Cut the Fabric!

Unzip the zipper and use your fabric scissors to cut down the centre. I hand stitched the bottom on the cut to keep it from fraying and carefully overlocked the edges of the cut. If you don't have an overlocker a zigzag stitch or even a looped hand stitch would work.

If the fabric at the top of the stitch is loose then fold it over and hand stitch it into place.

Step 5:

Try the skirt on again and keep taking it in if you need to. Mine needed to come in by a couple more inches at the waist because it wasn't fitting quite right.

And there you have your new knitted skirt. Gorgeous!

Find other tutorials on my blog at 

http://thrifty-little.blogspot.com