Craftgrrl

Hi all. I know it's been a while since I posted and shared any crafts, but I have a couple quick questions on a repair job that a co-worker asked me to do. It's a long, paisley cotton skirt that buttons down the front. She tried to fix a couple of places already and didn't do such a great job at it. It looks as though two or three of the buttons pulled or tore at the fabric around knee level. She attempted to sew them back on, but for some reason, she sewed the buttons to the side with the button holes, effectively sewing the button holes closed, and there are actual holes where the fabric ripped in those areas, on both sides. I am not even sure where to start, since after cutting off the buttons, I can see how much worse the fabric is torn than it seemed to be at first glance. If it were me, I'd just get rid of the skirt, or cut it up to use the fabric, but she really seems to like it and wants it fixed. It can't be cut off to a shorter length because there's a border pattern at the bottom.

I don't think anything I do will actually repair the rips invisibly. I have thought of using the facing, which is the same fabric, to patch the holes, which are about the size of a nickel at least. I also have some (slightly heavier) fabric which is in the same shade of purple as the paisely, and could be used to replace the facing (one reason the buttons seem to have caused tears). Does this sound workable? Can you think of any other ways to fix this? Most of what I'm thinking seems like it will be rather time-consuming and I don't want to spend more time on it than it's worth. she's offered to pay me and I told her it would take a some time and that I'd have to let her know how much it would be once I got a good look at it and figured out what to do, but realisitically, she won't want to pay a lot for it.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

ETA:

Since I don't have a camera handy, I did my best to draw a couple of pics of what I'm talking about. Sorry they are so huge. Here's a sketch of the skirt:


And here are rough drawings of it "unbuttoned."




(When I realized how big the pics looked once transferred in from Photobucket, I went back and cropped the "button" side out and re-posted it as a separate pic.)

I didn't try to draw the facing, but it's done with self fabric, not stitched on as a separate piece, but just folded over. The button holes are made through both the outside and the folded facing, and the buttons are sewn through both layers as well. Hope this helps to illustrate what I'm talking about.