Update: Lady Gaga just bought one of these skirts. Your argument is invalid.

• Time to design: 2 hours
• Time to make: 8 hours
• Materials used: 2 pairs of Carhartt carpenter jeans
• Number of redesigns: 3
• Number of needle pokes to my fingers: 1,244,503
• Number of times I cut myself and bled: 1
• Number of times I called out for design reinforcements: 1

So the plan was to make a cute versatile work skirt constructed out of my nemesis: The Carhartt Carpenter pant. I wore these pants non-stop: at least twice a week and sometimes even more than that!

I needed to take the worst offenders of my uniform slump and recreate them into a fun, flirty and adorable skirt.

I wanted all the pockets to function and I wanted to end result to be adorable. I wanted something that can be worn for work OR for going out.

The last two weeks I’ve been up to my proverbial carpenter’s ass in Edwardian Ball stuff. Making stuff to sell, putting together my outfits, and other miscellanea. So it comes as no surprise that the style I eventually settled on was a carpenter’s bustle skirt.

I started out by cutting off the waistband and then down the inseam of one pair of pants. I cut out the fly and sewed the two legs together to form one LARGE piece of material.

I thought of this while looking at the quilts from Gee’s Bend. There is a quilt that is made up from used pant legs to form one large bedspread. I thought “Why not! This can form the ruched bustle of the skirt!”

Then I cut along the inseam of the second pair of pants. I placed that on the dress form as the base of the skirt.

After positioning the skirt/pant on the mannequin I cut up the back rise of the pants to act as a kick pleat from where the bustle would flow. I secured the large piece of fabric for the bustle under the waistband and started a loose French bustle technique.

Pin (ow) after pin (ow) went into the skirt bustle and it was almost like sculpting a shape out of the 2D fabric. Once in place I started to frame the bustle using the legs of the pant.

I settled on cutting up and into the leg in order to fold the fabric over and around the pocket line to create a pleated ruffle that would span the along the bottom length of the skirt. When I settled on the correct line I sliced the pant leg to match the curve of the pleated ruffle and then pinned (ow, ow, ow) that into place.

I only wanted embellishments naturally occurring from the pants themselves. I didn’t want additional buttons or frivolous detailing applied on to the pants. If it didn’t come straight from the pant (already riveted pockets, seaming etc) it didn’t belong. That meant I scrapped a bunch of rose ideas, extra riveting ideas, and some pretty silly ideas having to do with 30 yards of zipper. I settled on using the interior seam binding that utilized a contrast color as my focal point on the top of the pants. This was going to be all the “extra oomph” that a bustle skirt needed. Simple. It’s a work skirt after all right?

In the end I think I ended up with exactly what I wanted. Something I can work in my studio in, at the bar in, at Burning Man in, and look adorable going out on a date with my manpanion!

This skirt will be available for sale at the end of the NO PANTS 2011 year.

In fact, you will be able to see all my future NO PANTS creations in a show that will culminate the year’s experiment.

12 months of awesome creations, 52 weeks of photos, musings, and experiences in one gallery setting! Stay tuned for more and remember – down with pants and up with skirts!