Old sweatshirt? Make a skirt

My hubby is a softball enthusiast. He coached two teams, recruited players to form a recreational mens softball team – their name was Beerhunters and a competitive mens softball team – they were called Hardhitters. Hubby was an umpire for over 40 years. He officiated basketball, baseball, fast pitch and slow pitch softball. His favorite sport to officiate was coed slow pitch softball. He also played both fast and slow pitch softball.

In the past few decades, he has officiated over 6000 softball games. When working those games, he always bought the shirts….ending up with many, many t-shirts and a few sweatshirts….some of them duplicates.

As you may know, they call the umpire ‘Blue’ due to the blue uniform most umpires wear. I always thought it funny that even when he officiated NSAA and wore red, they still referred to him as ‘Blue’. I attended many a softball game to watch him work, sitting in the stands and listening to the heckling when his call was against one team or another. Fun times at the ball park!

So, I told you all that to tell you that I secured a duplicate sweatshirt for myself from his Hardhitters softball team. I wore it some but it was, of course, a bit large for me. When I learned that skirts could be made from tops, I thought…..hmmmm…. and grabbed my Gingers!

The instructions for this skirt is similar to the ones for the polo shirt rehab. I do not have pictures of this rehab, just the finished product. I also converted a sweatshirt of my own into a skirt. What you’ll need is an oversized sweatshirt. Unlike the turtleneck skirt which starts as sweater knit, sweatshirt material has less give and stretch to it.

If the sweatshirt used to belong to hubby/significant other, though, you’ll want to use an existing skirt of yours for a pattern. It’s really easy – lay the sweatshirt on a flat surface, floor or table, lay your skirt on top and cut along each side leaving 1/2 inch for your seam. The bottom can be cut at length and the edge left raw – that’s what I did with hubby’s sweatshirt. For the waistband, you can cut even with your pattern skirt then use some of the ribbing at the bottom of the sweatshirt to make the waistband. Or, you can leave 3-4 inches above your pattern skirt and then turn it over and run elastic through it for the waistband.

Front of skirt
Back of skirt – just noticed the 50 is not centered 🙂
Inside to show waistband & seams – used a serger

The red skirt below was from one of my oversized sweatshirts. I decided how long I wanted it and cut it 3 inches longer so I could turn over the top for elastic. The hem is what was already on the sweatshirt, super convenient!