When too little fabric is enough - piecing pattern pieces

Earlier this summer I bought a piece of beautiful printed linen in the Seasalt sale -  a bargain at 3 metres for £19.95 instead of £55. I thought of all sorts of things I could make with it but in the end decided to keep it simple and make a Dress No2 by 100 Acts of Sewing because it's a pattern that works for me and I knew I'd love it.

It was lovely wide fabric and after making my dress I had well over half a metre left to do something with. There was no way I could bear to waste it.

 Again I looked at all sorts of patterns but it wasn't quite enough to make any of them so I turned again to my 100 Acts of Sewing patterns and yet another Shirt No1! 

This pattern is made with just two pieces, a front and a back, placed on the fold of the fabric for cutting out. I knew I had enough fabric to make the shirt but not enough to cut the two pattern pieces on the straight grain in whole pieces.
I decided the only way to go was to make the back in two pieces. I had enough to cut over half of the back to the fold, on the straight grain, but then cut the remainder for the bottom of the back piece on the cross-grain, just adding in a half inch seam allowance on each piece. I then pressed the seam towards the hem and top-stitched 1/4" from the seam to make a feature of the piecing.

The combination of a lovely simple pattern and a busy patterned stable fabric meant it worked like a dream and as it's on the back I don't even have to see it!

Having done this once it was a matter of time before I tried piecing my fabric again.

So when my girl bought me three beautiful 2 metre lengths of cotton fabric back from her holiday in Australia this summer I was determined to make the very most of it. One of those fabrics was a gorgeous Kookaburra print in rusty autumnal shades. It's a quilting cotton so only 44"(114cm) wide.

I'd already made a sleeveless Dress No1 out of one piece of Aussie fabric but decided to have a go at squeezing a Dress No2, with sleeves, out of the Kookaburras. The pattern calls for 2.75m of fabric with a width of 114cm for a size L and I had 2m exactly.

I was determined to give it a go and it worked, just, with a bit of nifty piecing!

Cutting the front and back to the fold was no problem but there wasn't a piece big enough to cut the sleeves whole so I pieced them roughly half way down the upper arm, squeezing the lower arm pieces, pockets and neck binding out of the rest of the fabric.

Again, just adding half an inch seam allowance to each sleeve piece, pressing the seam towards the upper arm and top-stitching the seam to make a feature out of it worked beautifully. Being a very busy print it's barely noticeable when I'm wearing it.

The simplicity of these patterns lends them brilliantly to piecing and I'm planning a colour blocked Shirt No1 at some point but for now I have another pieced Dress No2 cut from a 1.5m Seasalt remnant from eBay waiting to be sewn together!


Happy sewing!