This months' Crafty Bloggers' Club post is from Emily.  You can find more of her makes on Instagram @mossymakes

I absolutely love looking at remnant sales: it appeals to my need for a bargain and my attempts to become more sustainable in my shopping habits. I had the ‘mosaic sky craft cotton’ in my basket before I began talking to Kim about my blogpost and, when we discussed a sustainability angle for my blog, I knew I wanted to use up this 85cm remnant. I wasn’t sure what it was going to be, but I needed to use it. Added bonus: when it arrived it was sparkly! 

I haven’t made myself many skirts, so I requested the ‘all the cute skirts’ pattern from MHW. It is so versatile! However, with the need to mix fabrics, I went with the tulip skirt from the My Handmade Wardrobe Ready to Party Dress (which I already owned and have used for a previous blog post).  I hacked on a waistband using the skirt’s pattern tutorials. 

The idea of combining fabrics came from my friend Jackie’s idea of a ‘power clash’. I thought I could use a different fabric as the ‘main’ and the remnant as a pop of something different, so I looked through a few options and went with this lovely turquoise spotted cotton. I ordered a metre of it. As most of the ‘all the skirt patterns’ required 1.5m, and the remnant was 85cm, I thought this was a safe bet for my skirt. In the end though I got everything except for one skirt panel out of the mosaic sky cotton. 

The question in my house is always ‘could I make a pintuck cami out of it?’ as the first I ever made was done with a small remnant from a destash sale. To get it out of the polka dot fabric I had left (I estimate about 65cm) I had to:

• Narrow the side seams (so it fell straight rather than billowed) 
• Shorten it a little 
• Shorten the facings a little 
• Cut the back and the back facing on the flat (as two separate pieces, which I sewed together) 

To make the skirt I used the pre-cut tulip pattern pieces I had for my Ready to Party dress, deciding that I would keep the polka dots as a flash of colour and have them peek under the sky cotton. The bias binding technique for the tulip skirt was just as lovely this time, and created such a wonderful neat edge. I inserted the invisible zipper at the back (having now learnt the actual difference between a zip insertion and an invisible zip insertion!) with no problems either, following the fantastic tutorial on the MHW blog. 

The tricky bit came when fitting it! Without a bodice to go with it the waist was too big. Sadly, I have no hips, and it just didn’t fall right. I thought about bringing in the darts, but in the end I sewed up the side seams a little tighter, removing the curved shape of them. I also pulled the tulip cross over each other a little more. Rather than having the waistband meet, I added a popper and had the waistband edges overlap the other. 

So here I am, wearing the two pieces together as a little faux-dress, and separate for a more casual look! 

Plans for the future:

• I’ve got just enough fabric left to make myself a matching face covering; unfortunately I foresee them still being fashionable in 2022
• I love the ‘all the skirts’ pattern bundle, and think I'll make a pencil skirt next with some remnant wool fabric I inherited from my sister-in-law, Madeline.

Happy sewing!

Emily x

“Crafty Bloggers' Club Contributors are given products and materials to test from Crafty Sew & So. We hope you enjoy their honest and impartial reviews of the products. All opinions are their own.”