The Minty Ponte Matchy Patchy Skirt

I made the Minty Ponte Top a while ago, at a sewing workshop. Workshops are great, I love them, but they are usually quite tightly timed. That meant I just followed the instructions, and didn’t have the time to really think through the optimal cutting layout to maximise the use of my fabric. So I was left with essentially the side bits that are left over from cutting on a centred fold.

Buoyed by my experience with the eye-watering scrappy stripy skirt, I was determined to patch some of those bits together and make something useful out of them. My first thought was to make a matchy matchy skirt to wear with the top. But, of course! 

I started to think about planning and designing. I wanted to be sure of what I was doing so as not to leap in and waste the fabric. With a load of long thin bits, the obvious thing to do was a Panel skirt. But that felt a bit too boring.

And then I saw Zoe Edwards’ fabulous scrappy sweatshirt:

To see her full post, click here

And in turn she’d been inspired by Ricardo from Sewing Bee Series 5

And his post is here

And I knew that this would be my plan for the skirt.

How it started

I basically had a load of long Edge Bits. There were two selvedge pieces between 30cm and 40cm wide and about 2.75m long, and they joined together at the bottom, where I hadn’t cut anything. I decided from the outset, that the full-width section would provide the casing for an elastic waistband, so that it’s all one piece and only one seam to catch on the elastic. The long thin bits were then fully available to patch together. I cut them into rectangles and triangles. I wanted to have some visual variety.

Then it was a case of sewing them all together, to create a length of fabric that I could cut two skirt pieces out of. Zoe had said on her instagram post that she didn’t worry too much about grainlines. That made the process a lot easier. I also didn’t mind too much whether I was using the good side or the wrong side of the ponte. Between those two factors I’ve got some interesting contrasts in how the light reflects off different patches of the fabric.

My main challenge was keeping the fabric that I was creating flat. I wasn’t entirely successful with that, because this is a stretch fabric. But the fact that it’s stretchy also masks that a bit.

The start of the Patching

I wasn’t 100% convinced with the look I was achieving, as some of the pieces were fairly big, and I felt that if you’re visibly patching, then you’ve really got to lean into it, and make it obvious. I had two biggish sections, patched, so I cut them up a bit more and moved them around to patch them together again.

That’s more like it

I ended up with two pieces of patching each measuring 75cm (length) by 65cm (width). That was a bit bigger than I thought I would need for a skirt front and back.

I was able to cut them, using my self-drafted stretch skirt pattern, which is basically a straight skirt shape, but pegged in a bit from the hips down. I sewed the two side seams, easy peasy. Then I attached the waistband piece to the inside of the skirt, encasing the elastic.

Since I have sewn this almost exclusively in the Virtual Sewing Room, I used one of my “Made in the Virtual Sewing Room” labels, to finish it off.

And here we are

The top made me feel all librarian-y!

I actually made this in January, and I was working out all the techniques for myself, with the guidance from Zoe’s instagram post. But recently she’s done a whole Check Your Thread podcast episode on this technique AND she’s created a downloadable guide on how to sew from scraps. Check it out!

I’ve been trying to be less wasteful in my sewing, and use my leftovers. That’s what this skirt was all about. I’m pleased with how it came together. I don’t know how consistently I can do this. I will keep cutting fabric as frugally as I can, so that I can either use my leftovers for another project, or Fabric Swap them. I’m not aiming for Zero Waste Perfection, but Minimal Waste Good.