Pop Garden Scrap Skirt & Nina

Lately I have been looking at my massive amounts of scraps and feeling overwhelmed. I use fabric for a project, and what am I left with? Oddly shaped bits that are not big enough for one project, but big enough that they take up what meager closet/shelf space that I have. This irritates me, because just when I think, yay, I am sewing up my fabric! Looka me! Clearing off space! Then boom! I fold or wad up the scraps and oftentimes it looks like I didn't even use anything! Grr. What to do? Hello, it's not like I am going to quilt with with them. I am not cut out for any kind of sewing that requires patience. So, I have decided to a) use up what I can in creative ways, b) give away a bunch, and last but not least, c) hoard anything that stumps me . (<--I am scared how much this might actually encompass.) Here is one of my first scrap projects: a strippy skirt (inspired by the Pink Fig Girly Stripwork Skirt pattern that my cousin Erin just got) combined with a sweet, coordinating peasant top.

Pattern(s):

-Skirt: Based on the Hopscotch Skirt tutorial by Eva, available from the Sewing Mamas website. This tutorial is free; you just have to register on the site in order to download it. I highly recommend this tutorial--it is excellent. I took the measurements for the skirt and fiddled with them a little to get my strippy skirt. I sewed together enough 4" x 9.5" strips along their long side until it matched the length of the bottom skirt section. I then cut the bottom skirt section as two full widths of 43" fabric sewn together x 3.5". Other than that I followed the instructions exactly.

-Top: Modkid Nina with short sleeves. Like all the Modkid patterns I have used, this one is simple and straightforward, with wonderful instructions. This is a great basic peasant top with a slightly different look, so cute.

Fabric: Leftover scraps of Pop Garden by Heather Bailey from this project. Top is made from genuine swiss dot cotton lawn & various trim scraps I had on hand. This was my first time sewing with swiss dot, and I did not find it tricky. Although it is a thinner fabric, it behaved just as perfectly as any quilting cotton I've worked with. All fabrics are from Fabric.com.





This swiss dot is pretty thin. I underlined the bodice front and back with some batiste I had on hand to make it a little more opaque. I waited to attach the placket until I had both layers sewed together. I didn't think the swiss dot would have enough body to support the placket otherwise. Then I sewed on my trims. When I sew on my trims I use Steam a Seam Lite, which I get at Joanns. I fuse it to my ribbons or what have you, peel off the paper backing, then fuse the trims to my fabric. When I move over to my sewing machine, I can stitch everything on with no fear as everything is already stuck down. Soooo much easier than pins!

You can see the skirt turned out pretty full. This is exactly how wide the Hopscotch Skirt will turn out if you follow the directions to the letter. I did not make mine any wider; I just changed the proportions of the tiers.


Gotta have the little tag in the back. This time I used a little bit of leftover bias tape from my scraps. I had to make sure everything on this skirt was a scrap. :)

Against my better laziness, I decided to topstitch every joining seam for the strips. I admit, despite my lazy sewing rap, I am a chronic topstitcher. I am always telling myself, "Leah, you DO NOT need to topstitch everything." And I don't, I truly don't. Sometimes the topstitching naggy voice inside my head wins, sometimes it doesn't. At any rate, since I serged all these strips together, I knew the seams would not be strong enough to withstand normal child-wear unless I topstitched. And so I obeyed the voice. It honestly didn't take more than 20 minutes, and I think it was right anyway. :)

Up next, do you think I might get some cute Summer wear for myself? Oh sewing mojo, don't fail me...