A Halloween Patchwork Tiered Skirt

 I made another Halloween Patchwork Project!  And it's another tiered patchwork skirt! 

 

 There's really not much more to say about it!

...which won't keep me from saying more, of course... 

Olive & Aubergine Patchwork

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.

Doll-themed Patchwork

(but not doll-size patchwork)

When I was cutting the patches for the tiered patchwork skirt I made in early August, I had started with a slightly different set of fabrics.  The more I cut, though, the more I realized that there were two distinct themes and color schemes developing, so I went ahead and cut enough for two skirts.

The original fabric selection for everything was centered around the doll print and coordinating madras that I used for a button up shirt.  I obviously went in a different direction for the first tiered patchwork skirt I made, and this one uses the assortment of prints and plaids more centered on the doll print. 

 

There's an odd assortment of "coordinating but not" colors in the doll print, and they're reflected pretty well in the additional print assortment.  

Even if it looks disjointed.

A More Traditional Kind of Patchwork Skirt

If there is a quintessential example of my approach to patchwork--heavier fabrics, relatively structured--it would probably be the long A-line skirt I made last summer.

I decided I would put aside my propensity for structured patchwork and try a more "normal" approach of sewing strips of squares and gathering them into tiers for a skirt.

It worked out nicely.

Lattice

About two years ago, a visit to the craft thrift store found a length of very 1990s rayon, which I bought after being overwhelmed by nostalgia, but with no clear plans for it.  I honestly thought I'd make it into a button up shirt, because I could very much imagine that's something I would have worn in high school.

And, after making the previous few simple shirts, I was ready to make this one!  So I got out the fabric and...didn't want to make it into a shirt.  I briefly considered a dress, but I'm not the right shape for anything that seemed suitable for that fabric in that quantity.

I've also wanted to make some simple dirndl type skirts, and I realized that the nice heavy swish of the rayon would be very good for that.  The fact that it's predominantly white did make me pause, for various reasons, but...that swish was just so nice...

The thought process then went on to "Well, it definitely needs pockets," followed by "There's not enough of this fabric to make self pockets, so I'd need to use something else" and "Any pockets would be clearly visible through the white fabric, as well as any underwear," so that's how I ended up also lining it.

This means I still haven't made a simple dirndl style skirt, but I did make this one!

 

I am surprised by how much I like it.

Apple Skirt! A Different One!

The last large area of the apple print was just long enough to let me cut an only slightly-shortened view E of New Look 6843.

 

 (It's 17½" instead of the 18" the envelope says.)

And a Skirt to Match

After I finished cutting out the jacket in the previous post, I still had a sizable chunk of fabric left.  I knew there would be enough to make a skirt, although I figured it would be a miniskirt, which would work fine with the Jem & The Holograms vibe the jacket had.

I finished making the jacket and laid out the remaining fabric and realized...there was enough for a long skirt--a long slim skirt, but, still.  And I actually felt like that would be even more Jem Style.

So I got out Simplicity 9815 and started cutting.  I didn't have quite enough to reach the full length as given, but I got close.  I also decided to line it, because I almost always line a slim skirt.

The pattern illustration shows a lapped zipper in back, and I've wanted to get more comfortable installing lapped zippers, so I prepared to do that, but it was late, so I wasn't actually going to sew it until the next day.  This gave me time to have the idea to put a welt pocket with a flap--using pattern pieces for the welt pocket with flap from the jacket--off center on the front of the skirt.

 The pocket is there.  Really.

This Skirt was Supposed to be Tights

 So.  When I placed that Fabric Mart order, I chose two fabrics with the intention of making them into sewn tights.  The striped fabric was a little more whimsical; I sewed those first and they turned out just right, even with the piecing I had to do to get enough width in the second pair.

The other fabric-for-tights was a lightweight sweater knit in solid black.  I was really looking forward to having a pair of (relatively) heavy black tights!  The fabric, however, had other plans, and just did not have the right amount of stretch in the right directions.

I had confidently cut two pairs of tights from the fabric, and figured out a better way to add the crotch extension needed to make up for the lack of width in the second pair cut--which was the first pair sewn from the black.  I tried them on, and...no.

Now, when I made the tights from the gray wool? blend sweater knit, I managed to add more height, with necessarily weird piecing, to get them to fit (and I really like how they turned out, fabulous winter tights.)  I figured that would be easier to do with the second, not-yet-sewn pair of black tights, so I decided to cut off the feet of the first pair and finish the ankles to make a pair of cropped leggings.  I tried them on, and...no.  The fabric just wasn't right, at least not for the pattern I use.

So I put everything aside and moved on to the foiled silver leggings, which went much better.

I turned over the possibilities of what else I could do with the black knit fabric, already mostly cut into tights shapes.  Yes, it would be a perfect weight for doll clothes, but I did not want to relegate all 1½ yards x 60" of it to doll clothes.  I also did not want to make any sort of shirt, because I try to keep polyester away from my underarms, thanks.

I eventually thought of maybe...a gored skirt with godets?  I have Simplicity 4365 from 2005, my copy of which only goes up to size 14, but I was willing to gamble that the knit stretch would compensate. 

 

It's not like I got the cloth with a skirt in mind, so however it turned out would be however it turned out, y'know?  I chose view F and managed to get everything easily cut from the upper parts of the erstwhile tights.

Then I hit PMS, which completely eradicated any inclination to sew, which also gave me time to realize that I might have been able to open up those four pieces cut to make two pairs of tights, and possibly could have gotten the two front and two back pieces needed to make a proper pair of leggings, like I did with the silver foil fabric.  Too late to try!

Eventually I got to the point where I felt like sitting down and dragging myself through the sewing process.  I even changed the serger thread. 

 

Moth Holes & Free Lace

A craft thrift store visit in 2022 saw me get, among other fabrics (most of which have been used!), a length of black and white glen plaid.  In the linked post, I noted that it had a spot of damage.  Further inspection found a lot of damage.  The moth babies feasted on this.

I did use a bit of it in the B&W wool patchwork vest--the cloth has two faces, so I used the darker side in the vest (it's the fabric mentioned as being from the larger yardage.)  Between the moth holes and the...general oddness of the fabric--the yarns aren't as fine as I envision when I think of glen plaid, giving it a sort of 1970s vibe--I had started feeling rather apathetic about this fabric.

However!  Ever since I made that long A-line skirt from the patchwork of heavier fabric, I had wanted to try making a whole cloth skirt, in a heavier fabric, using the same pattern (McCall's 7981, modified to omit the front band and insert a back zipper.)  Since I still think fondly of an A-line B&W glen plaid skirt I made in 2013, I decided to see if I could get the pattern pieces for this skirt to fit on the yardage I had, and if I could avoid the worst of the damage while doing so.  Yes on the first, no on the second.

However!  Another long-gone skirt of which I think fondly was a thrifted skirt that developed holes, and I covered them up with appliqués cut from various fabric prints.  (And I guess I didn't think that merited being posted here, because I can't find a post about it.)  Appliqués, I thought, would be a fun way to cover the moth damage, especially since it was mostly limited to one area of the fabric...which turned into two disconnected areas of the skirt, because I had to cut the pattern pieces in opposite orientation.

I spent a day sorting through potential fabrics--all cotton calicos--and trims, cutting out motifs and developing an aesthetic direction to tie the chaos together.  Then I remembered the bag of cut pieces of yardage lace that I had gotten from the free table at the craft thrift store, and started mixing those in.

But then...

I realized that the lace motifs alone would work very well.  I put all of the chaos choices into a box, to consider using on a future project.  The lace pieces got more carefully trimmed, and fused to Wonder Under, and then fused onto the partly-assembled skirt.  After that, zigzagging around the edges, and then finishing the rest of the skirt.

Behold:

 I  think it worked out pretty well.

Cyan Olive

I thrifted some fabric in 2018 that was an odd combination of vivid cyan and dark olive, woven into a check, and in a weight that indicated it was probably meant for interior decorating.

A few days ago, I made it into a skirt.

Is it more doll clothes? No! It's more patchwork!

I had more fabric picked out for more patchwork, and I decided to finally get back to that.  It was over a week ago, though!  I had to drag myself through this project--not because it was any harder (or more tedious) than the previous patchwork projects, but because I had picked these fabrics out first, after I finished several projects last year and thought their scraps coordinated nicely.

Purple flannel herringbone set

Green plaid A-line skirt

Floral motorcycle jacket

Cotton flannel plaid skirt

Corduroy zipper skirt

Wool snap skirt

 

but the problem is that the more time it takes me to get to a project, the more mental weight the project gathers, and it gets harder to approach it in a light, carefree manner like I do with the more spontaneous stuff I make.  The recent "just make something from these fabric scraps that are taking up too much room" projects were a breeze, because they happened almost as fast as the ideas for them formed.  The idea for this, however, had been around since November, giving my brain time to form expectations for it.  Progress gets held back by thoughts of "What if this doesn't end up as nice/fun/cool as I thought it would?"

Still, I kept at it and slowly--eight days!--got it finished

 

 

This is when I hear people say "Eight days? It would have  taken me a month to sew all those patches together!" and I respond that, yes, I understand that this kind of thing can take a while, and I really should be comfortable taking all the time I need for it.  But.  I got the longer, but more spontaneous, patchwork skirt done in five days, so my brain is back there saying I should have been able to finish this one faster.  Brains can be unreasonable.

Random Patchwork Skirt. A Different One.

A bit over a year ago, I picked up a bit of printed velveteen from the craft thrift store free table.  I rolled it up and tucked it into the side of the fancy small yardage drawer, so it was in view when I started pulling fabric from that drawer to make room so the sides of the drawer would stop creaking whenever I put anything away.  I figured I would never make doll clothes, or the hypothetical upper collar, from it like I'd thought, so into the potential patchwork pile it went.  It was quickly joined by a blue soft brocade remnant, which I'd gotten in a destash from a local doll person, that had a tag declaring it to be Pendleton Wool, and on steep reduction in price.  Pieces of the blue left over from the bed cover I made at the end of 2019 matched well, too.  Some olive green fine wale corduroy also came out of the small yardage drawer, although I hadn't initially thought of using any of the "doll pants" fabric.  I don't think I had ever used it for doll pants, either, so, might as well use it in this.

That still didn't seem like quite enough fabric, so I got into the larger yardage, and came out with the rest of the black brocade of unknown fiber content used for a bustier and waist cincher a few years ago.  I had a vague idea this would all go into a shorter A-line skirt, and adding the brocade made it all seem like an appropriate quantity of fabric.

I folded one corner of the velveteen remnant to determine the patch size (measure? me?), getting two full squares plus a bit extra from it.  I ended up with about 36 full size squares, plus all the odd pieces left over, and it was plenty to make view A from New Look 6843 (with the waistband borrowed from Simplicity 9851, like the previous patchwork A-line skirt.)

(I did omit belt loops, because this skirt wasn't going to be anywhere near as heavy as the last one.)

Random Patchwork Skirt

The previous skirt-fix project I posted was done during a pause in a longer-term project (which took...like...five days from start to finish. That's a long time for me to spend on a single piece project.)

See, when I was putting the fluffy gray cloth--recently used for a doll dress--back into the "fancier and heavier small yardage for potential doll use" drawer, the side of the drawer creaked, because there was so much fabric stuffed into it.  There were a lot of wool and heavier cotton remnants left over from other projects, which meant it was not suitable to donate to the craft thrift store.

So! Time for a patchwork project!

I took out all of the wool bits and started sorting them by coordinating colors, and then realized that a large interior decorating cotton print sample had colors that matched (roughly) one group of colors, so I added that and used it to pull some more pieces of fabric from the heavy cotton part of the drawer.

At this point, I knew I wanted to make a long A-line skirt, so I needed some more fabric, and delved into my larger yardage 'heavier fabric' shelf...which I ended up removing all the fabric and re-stacking.  And then doing that for six other sections of my larger cloth storage shelves.  But!  I found two more pieces that would work, in terms of color and weight, and that felt like it would be enough for the skirt I envisioned (because of course I did not do any kind of measurement or math or other calculations to figure out if it would be.)

I used a 4½" quilt ruler and rotary cutter to cut the first dozen or so patches, then changed over to using one of those rotary cut pieces as a pattern piece to cut the rest with scissors.  I also set aside a strip of one of the fabrics I'd chosen, from the larger yardage storage, to use for the waistband--it was a printed plaid cotton twill that I had to convince myself to use, purely because I figured cotton would be more comfortable at the waist, where there could be potential skin contact, than wool or wool blends would be, and if I was going to use it at the waist then I should use it in the patchwork part, too, as much as I don't generally like the idea of printed plaid (I had only been keeping it to use as a potential strength layer inside other projects.) (I will say, though, once I started working on the waistband, I realized that I would have adored an entire skirt or pair of pants made from it when I was in high school, and I probably wouldn't even have noticed how far off-grain it was printed.)

Once I had most of the fabric cut into squares, I chose a pattern to use, so I could lay the patches out to get an idea of how many I'd ultimately need.  The pattern I'd had in mind had an elastic waist, which I figured would not be a good option for something as heavy as this skirt was probably going to be.  The next pattern I turned to was gathered to the waistband, and, again, that didn't seem like the best idea for anything this heavy.  The only pattern I have with a long A-line skirt that is set smoothly into the waistband is McCall's 7981, which has its main feature being a button front, which, again...didn't seem like a good idea for this project.  I knew I could make the front a solid piece (well...patches aside) and omit the front button band and add a zipper to the center back seam.  I did think of adding a side seam zipper, but I wanted to keep the pockets, and I know that doing side seam zipper with pockets is possible, but I didn't want to deal with it in this project.

The other issue with my copy of McCall's 7981 is that it's size L-XL, and I know from experience that size L makes a waistband that's a touch large for me.  Which is normally not a problem, but, as I've mentioned, this skirt was going to be heavy, so it needed a waistband that fit as closely as possible, and, also, if I could shave off any amount of width needed to patch together, it would be nice.  What I ended up doing was making the center front about a seam allowance width in from the edge of the pattern front, and (eventually) adding darts in the back, and using the waistband from Simplicity 9851.  And adding belt loops. (Not that I currently have any good belts...)

I laid out the patches on the skirt front piece, only worrying about the sections that needed the full squares to cover, because I knew I could use the odd bits and pieces, that weren't large enough to cut full squares, to fill in the edges.  I counted how many pieces covered the pattern and multiplied by four, which gave me a number that was only slightly larger than the number of patches I'd already cut, and I still had plenty of one of the larger yardage pieces to make up that amount.

Time for assembly!

So, in five days, it went from this

 

 to this

Gray A-Line Fix Fix

About two years ago, I sewed a gray wool blend A-line skirt.  It's a good basic piece that was too small at the waist.

I decided at some point to 'fix' that...and managed to make it too large.  Things weren't helped by my brilliant idea to make the newer, larger waistband from a nice soft knit.

Now, I lived through the late 90s, so a skirt that sits below my natural waistline is not out of the question, but the effect of this one doing that was that the hem landed at a rather dowdy length.

Plus, I had applied that soft comfortable new knit waistband in my usual "sew to the back and flip around to the front, where the edge is stitched down" way, and that does not work as well on a soft floppy knit as it does on a crisp, interfaced woven.

I finally sat down and really fixed it.

mumble

 So I've wanted to revisit Simplicity 8241 from 1987--I don't have my own photo of the pattern envelope, and I don't particularly want to take one at the moment.  There are two listings for it on eBay right now, so I borrowed this from one of those

My copy is in size 8, which was fine when I first acquired and made it (for the only time) over 20 years ago.  No so much now.

Earlier in the week, I had pulled a piece of red and black and white plaid fabric--cotton, not quite coarse enough to be homespun, but not really lightweight enough for me to want to go ahead and make it into another try at a buttoned shirt with a scoop neckline instead of a collar, with no print mixing.  The fabric was also 36", so I would not have been able to eke out even the tiny sleeves. So. No shirt from that fabric.

But, I got it in my mind that I absolutely would use that fabric next. And eventually I thought, hey, I could mix prints with it after all.  Maybe a skirt?  Tiered, with each tier in a separate fabric? ...or...gored...with the fabric mixed across gores...  And that led back to Simplicity 8241.

Which I didn't exactly use.  It's a twelve gore skirt, and there are six separate pattern pieces for those  twelve gores.  I didn't wanna deal with that.  I dug out the back center piece and cut 12 of those, adding some extra width to the top, as well as shortening it by two inches from the top.

Yeah, in retrospect: bad idea.

I knew one fabric I wanted to use with the plaid, but needed another to be able to make everything.  Meh, I have a lot of cloth, I'll find something good.

Hey, guess what?  I did not find something good.  I did find something adequate, and I sewed it all together, but...I'm not happy about it.

Coral Kettle Cloth

Years ago,  I thrifted several yards of an odd fabric in a steely blue gray, and then a bit later thrifted more of it in an equally odd maybe-coral color.  I used a lot of the blue a few years ago in a quilt (not just patchwork, but an actual quilt!), and then for a few other things, and during that time I found out the fabric was a cotton rayon blend called kettle cloth. 

I had seen kettle cloth listed in the suggested fabrics of some vintage patterns, but I hadn't known anything else about kettle cloth.  I don't even remember how I discovered that this particular fabric is kettle cloth.  And as soon as I identified it as kettle cloth, I also learned that it's no longer made, and hasn't been for a while.

Which is a little odd to think about!

But so much of my fabric is vintage, made ages ago and never again, that it's not out of place in my fabric stash.

So, I grabbed McCall's 7981 and the not-exactly-coral kettle cloth and cut out the longest A-line view.

Then I made some weird decisions and had to let it simmer for a few days before I convinced myself they were worth correcting.

Bubblegum Cargo Skirt

I somehow stumbled across the Waffle Patterns Anzu cargo skirt pattern a while ago, and it made me add "cargo skirt" to my list of Vague Ideas for Someday Projects.  I did make a carpenter skirt, out of a completely inappropriate fabric, and that I never once wore until I shortened it (which involved removing the excess pockets.)

I also wanted to make another shortened McCall's 7981, and it recently clicked together that a shortened 7981 could be a good base for the vague idea of a cargo skirt.

I decided to use the 2 yards of 60" pink chambray I got from the craft thrift store, since I didn't have any plans for that fabric and that much fabric seemed like it should be enough (and it was, with a decent remnant left)

Just adding pockets to McCall's 7981 probably would have worked just fine, but I also wanted to add a back yoke.  I borrowed that, along with the shape of the edge to sew to the back yoke and the back pockets and the belt loops, from early 1980s Butterick 4703.  Many pockets came from Simplicity 8526, plus some done free form.

And I ended up with this

 

 

Wool Slip Fix Skirt Hack

So, in April, I made a wool bias slip dress that...did not go well.  A few weeks later, I fixed the problems.  Not blogged: finding that I hadn't managed to avoid all the moth holes, and clumsily mending one on the upper back.  Yeah, I didn't wear it much.

I finally decided I would go ahead and turn it into a skirt, but it took me days between making that decision, making the decision on how I'd do it, making the cuts to do it, and then actually doing it.

But I did do it!

Purple Flannel Herringbone Skirt

After I finished the blazer in the previous post, I looked at the remaining fabric and wondered if I could eke out a matching skirt.

And I could! Barely! And only on a technicality!

Flannelskirt

 I have used New Look 6843 many times, and it is a good basic set of skirts, with two variations on A-line--one in two lengths--and two lengths of sheath skirt, going up to size 18.  So, why would I use Simplicity 9815 for a short sheath skirt instead?

Now, the last time I made a shortened version of it, I went with the size 20, which isn't an option with the New Look. But, size 18? And making it shorter than either view offered?  Well...I really don't know why I did.

In retrospect, it's nice that there are only two darts on the Simplicity back, instead of the New Look's four, and, also, the Simplicity's waistband is much wider than the New Look's, which made fastening the button a lot easier than it tends to be in the little narrow waistband on the New Look.  But, again, those are things I hadn't realized when I decided to make this skirt from the Simplicity instead of the New Look. I'm still not sure why I chose the Simplicity for this, but I did, and it turned out great.