I have this beautiful true red and black patterned fat quarter, a quilting cotton. It has these lovely rope or thread motifs on it that somehow remind me of bamboo (I don't know what my thought process is there) - but I have no other fabric that this goes with if I want to use it in a quilt.
So repurposing is the order of the day.
What can I make with one fat quarter? Not a heck of a lot. But I can if combined with a plain black fabric, like for example a skirt. Marvellous idea! But the fabric isn't long enough to run down the length of the skirt - therefore I need to sew two separate sections together.
Then I had a sudden vision of a wavy panel, snaking its way down the skirt. I got on really well with putting this together, so here are some progress shots:
What I love about designing something yourself: you get to decide what you want to do if there is an issue - like the seamline between my two sections of the red fabric.
I did try to pattern match this as pernickety and detail obsessed as I could but it wasn't perfect. And I would always know that it doesn't quite fit together. But what if I turn this around and make a feature out of a bug? (That's my absolutely favourite design process and objective!)
Why not hide that seam in a way that becomes a defining design feature? Why not sew a sort of tab across?
I didn't want a straight piece of fabric stuck on top, that would have looked silly. But picking up the wave theme and going with a satisfyingly curved piece of applique: It looks just right!
I did sew the side seam together to attach the tab on the right hand side, now I have to adjust the width for the second side seam because the pattern pieces are way too big. Very odd.
And it isn't because I pulled the black fabric apart to insert the red panel: I actually removed the middle bit that I cut out - I will post lots of photos of what I did in another blog post soon.
Isn't sewing just so much fun?
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