Wearing Skirts

I'm a girly-girl. I freely admit it. I like make-up and perfume, the color pink and wearing skirts. It's skirts that I want to talk about today. When I was in High School I played on a couple of sports teams. Whenever we would have a home game our coaches told us we had to wear skirts or dresses. I never really minded this, but I had some friends who sure did. I had plenty of skirts and dresses since I wore one every week to church, but some friends had to get one to wear. When I was in college I worked at a book store where we could only wear jeans on Fridays. I could either get dress pants or wear skirts and dresses. I did wear pants quite a bit because I had to climb ladders occasionally and I thought pants would be better, but when I got pregnant with my first child, I found my skirts and dresses much more comfortable and took to wearing them most of the time. Then, I had my daughter and I got back into wearing pants. It was easier when I was constantly getting down to change diapers and clean up messes.

Lately a friend of mine was making an effort to look more feminine and dress more in skirts. I was reminded how much I enjoy wearing skirts and began to wear them more often, also. Most of my skirts were dressy and more for church so I came up with an idea. I took a pair of pants that I couldn't wear anymore because of some holes it them, and I turned them into a skirt. I did the same things first on one of my daughter's skirts to see if I could make it work, and then did my own. I love it! It is durable, I don't worry if I get mud or flour or snot on it. I feel like I can work in it and not be worrying about keeping it nice, and I am being "green" by using something I already had. I've gotten quite a few compliments on my skirt, too. I had a few more pairs of pants that I couldn't wear anymore and decided to make them also into skirts. Here is my second one:
This skirt is longer than the first one, at least in the front. I'm not sure what happened, but the front is longer than the back, but if I'm mostly wearing them at home then who cares? This one I used denim to fill in the middle part, I just used an old pair of my hubby's pants. He is really hard on jeans, so that wasn't hard to come by. I am still trying different techniques for adding that center piece. I'm not sure I've found the "perfect" way yet, but I love trying and making something new out of something old.

So what have I discovered through all of this. Well, in reading of other women's experiences I found it interesting that they felt other women were uncomfortable around them when they were wearing skirts. Why is this, I wonder? I've worn my skirts all over the place, to town shopping, to the school, to participate in a local co-op, and to church functions during the week. Mostly, I get compliments on my skirts and asked if I made them. Is it the type of skirts? Maybe. Like I said, mine are denim and so while they are "dressy" because they are a skirt, to me they aren't dressy at all because they are denim. I view dressy as materials that I worry about keeping clean, these skirts I treat like a well worn pair of jeans, because that is what they are.

Maybe it is certain types of people. I find that many of the people I know outside of church have a wider range of "acceptable" dress standards. If someone wants to wear a dress just because, great. If they want to wear hip hugging pants and tank tops, whatever. If their choice of style includes something tie dyed or is all black, that fine too. However, other groups of people have ideas that fall into more narrow margins. Clothing should be clean and neat. Nothing sleeveless or with bare midrifts. Nothing too tight or revealing. It almost feels like within these standards, though, the idea is t-shirts and jeans. To be comfortable you wear t-shirt and jeans, to be practical you wear t-shirt and jeans. It doesn't matter if you are a boy or a girl, t-shirts and jeans. The cut and style are slightly different for boys and girls, but t-shirts and jeans. Perhaps some of these t-shirt and jeans women want to be skirt and dress women. They see these skirts and want to be feminine, but think skirts would limit what they can do. Maybe they feel like they should be dressing more feminine, but don't want to so they feel guilt. I don't know. I can't say that I have ever noticed other women feeling uncomfortable around me when I'm wearing a skirt. Maybe it's the fact that I can't be too dressed up if I've got my comfy mary jane type tennis shoes peeking out from under the hem of my skirt.

The next thing I need to make me, though, is a nice big apron to cover up my skirt. Even though I don't mind if they get dirty, if I have to go into town, I'd rather not have snot or dirty handprints on my skirt if I can help it. A nice, big apron would just do the trick, don't you think?