From Legs to Fishtail

Cast out into the wilderness, the moose went back to the Machine. It was a strange reunion, like being beamed back to the clunky, rather resentful mothership after a modern, state-of-the-sewing-machine-art interlude on Planet Roz.
'Where have you been these past six weeks?', the Machine seemed to say.
We were on a break…
Awkwardness. Clumsily fumbling with the bobbin, struggling to thread it in the guilty silence. Why are relationships so difficult? To make the peace, something needed to be made. What though? I’d been so used to being told what to do, handed bits of paper or fabric that I was suddenly at a loss.
Then my eye alighted on The Unpicker. One of the trusty trinity. And an idea sparked.
Sometimes sewing isn’t about making something from scratch. Sometimes it’s about taking one item and transforming it into another. Just like you can turn a prince into a frog (try harder) you can turn an old dress into a new top.
My friend Helen has been doing this for years, I was surprised and ashamed to discover.
‘Yeah, I’ve been sewing since I was little,’ she said. I’ve known her for years. I felt I should have know that.
‘Weird isn’t it. It’s something we never talk about.’ Until now. You can’t walk past any cafe-cum-purveyor of very expensive teas without seeing groups of thirty-something women busily waving their knitting needles or embroidery thread around. Normally when Helen and I meet for wine, talk is of men, work, Amazonian jungle treks. What would it mean if we talked of sewing machines and charity shop finds instead? A sign of the times? Or just another step towards the zimmer frame??!
So transformers, robots in disguise. I knew what I wanted to adapt. They'd been in the cupboard for years, waiting for the change. Well now it was coming. I've always liked jeans turned into denim skirts with the zig zaggy effect of splayed out seams. Surely my beloved old baggy black trousers would make that perfect little black skirt I've always felt was missing from my wardrobe.
I started with a surgical removal of the legs. Ten years of good walking, summarily chopped off. Next I picked up the Unpicker and started to unpick.
Unpick pick pick pick, pick pick pick pick, unpick the whole day through.
It was tough work. I'd never realised how much reinforcement goes into the crotch of a pair of trousers. It was like breaking into Fort Knox. A double layer of stitching made twice the work - funny; I always thought destruction would be easier than this. To top it all, I felt like a pervert, scrabbling away in such an intimate area.
Finally Fort Crotch lay open. I cut two long V-shapes to fill the gap between the flapping splayed-out legs and pinned the lot together. Then, black thread into the bobbin, I sewed it all up and used my new hemming skills to neaten up the now mid-thigh length. Curtain call...
'Look at my new skirt!'
'Why does it have a tail?'
It did. A weird sort of fish-tail poking out the back. I'd put back too much material, and now I was the Little Mermaid, in a neat reversal of the fairy tale. Still, that's the joy of sewing. Creation, transformation; you can change anything you put your hand to.
Why hello your Royal Highness.
Ribbet.