Using Up Scraps

So, sewing the whole wardrobe from stash was quite a challenge. I have been aggressively buying fabric this year--I totally can't deny that--but I have also been aggressively sewing. I'm at 83 yards sewn in my rough tally on my PR profile; there are about 4 or 5 yards not counted in it yet; purchases are recorded at 93 yards. I had plenty of stash built up before the year started, of course, but I have outgrown a lot of it/become more of a fiber snob. I was really scraping to get enough fabric in coordinating colors to fill out the wardrobe, which helped me look creatively at some smaller pieces of fabric I had.

The floral print here is a beautiful print in colors I love on a hideous fabric. It is almost impenetrable by a needle and is a misery to sew (though a stretch needle, knock on wood, seems to work almost well). It has a great drape, though, and the print is really nice. I bought it to accent an infinity dress I made last year. I lined the straps with it and made a reversible tube top of the dress fabric and the print fabric. It was kind of a disaster. Lining the straps made them way too thick and ugly where they were knotted together, so I ripped out the looooong long seams of the straps. The fashion fabric is really cheap and thin and rolls together really terribly so I started ironing interfacing along the edges to give it enough body to be hemmed but got bored of it and gave up about 1/4 of the way through. I guess I can pull it out for the UFO contest.

Anyway, this is why I had only a little bit of this print. I had just enough to cut out the upper bodice. The scraps from it were quite small. It was pretty serendipitous. The blue heavy knit is from my Mermaid Parade costume and there was more than a scrap left of it, but less than a full yard (I still have plenty to make a skirt). I was pretty pleased with my resourcefulness in combining them, using up stash, and making something to fit in with my wardrobe colors.

What's slapdash about this project are the sleeve bands. I didn't measure how wide the sleeve openings were, just cut binding pieces that "seemed" long enough. They weren't. Rather than measure and re-cut I stretched the bindings to fit the sleeves. This looked horrible so I ripped it out. Again, rather than actually measure I cut some extension pieces. The bindings still weren't quite long enough so I stretched them to fit on the under part of the sleeve. They don't look horrible like before, but are not quite right if you know to look for it (which nobody but you will). This is an instance where being slapdash is pointless and stupid. It would have been *easier* and *saved time* to measure in the first place. I even knew that at the time. I just like my slapdash ways.

You can read the review if you'd like.