Hello! This is the latest thing in my little “use 12” challenge… a little top using this very small remnant given to me by my friend N when she cleaned out her stash. I really loved the colour of this scrap and was determined to save it… the colour reminds me of Sherbies which was one of my favourite lollies when I was growing up.
Sherbies are more pink and not quite as orange as their wrapping… I couldn’t find any pictures of an unwrapped Sherbie to show it so I’ll go out and buy some, take a pic and replace this picture when I do!
But the piece was tiny; quite narrow and only about 70cm long…. Honestly, this seems to be the story of my life lately; squeezing things out of the tiniest pieces of fabric… there’s a challenge going on at the moment where you’re supposed to use up 30m of your stash. I think I could do this because it sounds like fun! however if I’m only going to be using up 70cm of fabric with each thing that I make it’s going to take me forever!!
cat for scale
So, as usual I really didn’t have enough fabric to cut out even a small top… because the pokey out bits on the sides of all the pieces that enable your armpits to be covered actually use up such a lot of the width of your fabric, and if you cut out the pieces as is you end up with a lot of long skinny pieces of wastage. Eventually however, I discovered that you could fold back the said pokey out bits of your pattern pieces, and cut a gusset out of that bit at the top between the armscyes on each piece. Here’s a very rough drawing to illustrate:
You put the gusset in the underarm area to make up the shortfall from where you folded back the pokey-out bits, like so:
Yes.. it’s not very elegant and looks bit funny maybe, but it works and I’m happy. It’s pretty close to a zero waste design, which is such a buzz-word at the moment but is one I’ve always aspired to really, so that’s a good thing!
Not enough fabric for bindings… I finished all the edges using bias binding cut from leftover poplin from masks/mask lining I made for the family…
Seven down, five to go! I’m so please with my little capsule wardrobe and how it’s coming along… I can’t wait to see all the pieces together in one lovely collection once I’ve finished them all!
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