Once again, I opened a fabric storage drawer and said to myself, "This is very crowded, maybe I should use up all of a certain kind of fabric here in a patchwork project."
This time, it was bits of rayon, especially after I noticed they all circled around the same greens and purples...plus one black and white print. At first, I wasn't going to include the B&W, but I thought it made a nice, unexpected contrast, so I went with it, which helped when it came to finding additional fabrics to mix in.
In addition to the rayons (most of which are challis, but one is faille), there's a vintage linen???, smooth plain weave cottons, homespuns, a flannelette, and a slubby silk cotton blend.
I cut the patches at 6" square, based on the largest square I could cut from the one odd bit of vintage linen maybe?? fabric. I went with 12 squares for the top tier, then 16, 20, 24, and 28, for 100 squares total.
As with other patchwork skirts I've made, I assembled the front separately from the back, so there would be side seams for pockets.
I also serged every edge of every patch
I sewed all the patches together using the thin tex 24 thread, and also used that to gather the tiers...and went ahead and used it for everything else, except where the stitches would be visible. For that, I used some purple tex 30 thread that was on a bobbin.
I put that bobbin on the top of the machine for the waistband stitching
I attached the waistband my usual way, by pressing up the long edge that will be on the outside, sewing the raw edge right side to wrong side of the edge, then flipping the pressed edge to the outside and edge stitching it in place.
I do prefer the look of elastic in a casing that just fits it, so I always forget how incredibly much easier it is to thread elastic into a casing that has some slack like this. I probably could have fit two rows of 3/4" elastic, but I went with the half inch simply because I have more of it. And then I didn't have to fight to get it through at all!
I left a small bit open on the inside of this waistband side seam, then pressed the waistband in half to give a stitching guide line, and sewed most of the way around. After threading and securing the elastic, I stitched to connect the ends of the original stitching, but I didn't feel the need to slip stitch the opening closed. You can see where the white tex 24 thread was in the bobbin for this.
I put the bobbin of purple into the bobbin area to sew the hem, which I decided to simply turn and stitch.
I mainly chose this thread because it was already on the bobbin, and I figured I could use it up with this project--like, completely up, since I didn't have any left on a spool. And I was thrilled that I won bobbin chicken, and with such a margin that it doesn't, for bobbin chicken, even feel that close.
There were some fabrics that I could only get one square cut from, so I put those all on the front. I also thought I had three leopard print squares, so I put two on the front, and then, when laying out the back, I realized, nope, no more of those. I think the back still has a nice variety, although I do admit, I was getting tired of those dark purple squares.
I am glad I used the black and white elements, because they definitely open up clothing coordination possibilities
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