Black Floral Rayon, Take Two

I promised that I'd share the fate of the leftover piece of the gorgeous black floral rayon that I used for my recent Butterick 4948 and today's the day!

When I cut that dress out, I had to cut it on the cross-grain since the flowers bloomed horizontally along the length of the fabric. This meant that I had a 12" strip the full width of the fabric when I finished. It seemed obvious to fold it over and make a scarf, even if it was a little short -- very French, anyhow!

But I'd cut the skirt maxi length, and when I tried the dress on, the length and the print and my short height did not work together at all, so I cut 6" off the bottom of the skirt to bring it to knee length. So now I also had two 6" wide chunks of fabric left over as well. I cut both of them in half and stitched them together to make two shorter 12" blocks, and sewed those on  to the ends of my original long piece. The varying directions of the print didn't matter because the fabric was going to be all rolled up together anyhow in the end. And it made the scarf just long enough to wear with nice hanging tails.

The scarf went together smoothly, I turned it and hand stitched the opening and there you have it, a very soft, light and colourful spring/fall weight scarf. Or a decorative one to wear with an outfit. It feels heavenly against the neck, it is so unbelievably soft and smooth!

So what did I have left? A few oddly shaped large bits from cutting the dress. I got out my rotary cutter and mat and trimmed some one inch wide bias strips from each bit that was big enough and stitched those all together to make a long bias strip. This will be lovely to cover some seams in a future project.


So I used up almost all of this beautiful fabric in one way or another. You can stretch your sewing budget by first, trying to buy only the amount you are actually going to need for a project, or in those cases where you have excess, by using those bits for another project. There are many scrappy projects to be found online (scrunchies are apparently hot again), but I also like using mine for things like these ones -- or pocket bags -- or covered buttons -- or trims. It is earth-friendly and also budget-friendly!