Upcycled skirt

I was trying to clear outsome of my 

now-a-problem fabric stash 

when I found the top of a "bad-buy" goth skirt I had bought probably 15 years ago.

The black fabric is a goth skirt - top of a skirt and the check stuff out of my stash.

Only the top tho because the rest is actually net/tulle which I  chopped off but actually is also in my stash! 

Yes I am a terrible hoarder and its half the problem. 

Using this means I have not sent what is really a brand new skirt to the landfill and also I do not have to sew it up - thats the bonus of course.

 I do not need a buy a new zip etc etc. Its morally right and a very fast make.

It also clears a couple more bits from my far too large fabric stash.

I remember objecting when others have made comments on their blogs about the immorality of stashing fabric. Well then mine was not a problem. It is now. 

Suddenly!

And its hard to decide what to get rid of and what to keep. I am intending to make up as many large items as possible over the coming weeks and forget the The Monthly Stitch challenges unless they fit in with this aim. 

I spend a lot of time and effort trying to decide what to do for this challenge or that. 

Well right now my main challenge is to clear out some of my stash but not necessarily to chuck it away. Instead to actually make some of this stuff into clothing that has been planned in some cases for several years.

AND NOT BUY ANY MORE FABRIC!

or not for a while and until the stash is again manageable and storeable.

I am happily between jobs for about 2 weeks now. I quit my temp job when I found out I have a perm job with a local organisation but they are taking some time to actually give me a start date.

Thats OK because really I want a sewing holiday. Normally when I have holiday my other half has one as well which is great but no good for sewing. So this is my time to be free to sew and to delete some of my stash. I have so far been off work a full week and have tidied the garden, done some decorating and yet no sewing at all other than this upcycled skirt made from the rest of this fabric which I made the off shoulder top and my pixie dress from and its such a small bit of stash so I need to do better. 

I am sorting it all out to make into stuff tho honest!

So here is my skirt:

So to make my lovely skirt. I took 4 bits of around the same size and overlocked together and overlocked the edge that is now the hem.

 I then pleated this bit roughly around the bottom of the goth skirt. That makes the bulk of the checked part of my skirt. 

Because it frays something crazy I overlocked the now joined black fabric to the pleated fabric making the inside seam neat and strong.

 Then I found two more bits of fabric strips and used the natural raw fraying edges to make a pleated frill on top of the join between the black and check fabrics. I needed to do two rows of stitching to make this frill lie right.

 But then I had this frilly bottom with a plain black top which did not look quite right so I added the rest of the bits of fabric I still had and sewed around the black skirt top in rough strips. They are not quite straight but this is actually intended. Then I had to deal with the bottom of the zip. One strip already overlapped and I decided to leave it dangling so I added an extra bit to the other side and made a second dangly bit which can bit loosely tied or not as a feel like on one side. It finishes the strip next to the zip where otherwise it looked a bit strange and I did not want to sew over the zip and thereby shorten it.

The fabric has alternating checked patterns but to make this I had to decide not to worry about matching anything because there was not enough fabric to do that so I decided to randomly just attach bits and it works really well.

Its very much a raggy skirt made from little bits of fabric but I am very much into it. I wore it to town yesterday and it feels good its so very raggy and different to what is currently in the shops. Reminds me of lots of stuff I saw in the 80s and early 90s but not quite like current fashion. I felt good wearing this. I think being a kind of check too will be great for autumn/fall and winter tho its not a warm skirt but UK winters are often not cold. Having said that I am expecting from the huge amount of berries this year we are going to have a long cold winter but for now this is my latest stash buster garment. I need to tray and make sure the next one uses a bit more fabric tho!

Oh I also made the green velvet top.

Bracken