Making Due With Scraps

 

I needed a break from sewing, so I thought I'd share what I've been working on this evening.  See the pile of fabric scraps above (above the long strip of fabric)?  That's all that's left of the wool jacket.  From that pile, I only needed to get the 5"x48" waistband piece.  Or so I thought. 

I realized yesterday that I was missing the second collar piece.  I'd been forced to chop the collar piece in half to begin with because the wool fabric was getting tight, and after I eeked those pieces out, I completely forgot to cut another set.

First collar piece below, new piece above

I managed to cut out another collar piece from two scraps.  The attaching seam was deliberately offset to reduce bulk on the collar.  The shape is a bit wonky, but that should be hidden in the seam allowance.  WHEW!

Unfortunately, this used up one of the larger scraps of wool that I'd planned to use in the waistband.  So I had to get a little creative patching it together.

Sorry for the crummy photos. Poor lighting and charcoal grey wool are not a good mix.

First I cut off and ironed the waistband from my jacket toile to use as a pattern piece.  Then I laid out the largest pieces I had left (a matching pair that came from who-knows-where-but-obviously-mirrored sections of the jacket) at both ends.  Since the ends meet in the front, I wanted them to be as clean as possible, so I made sure that no seams would show up there.  Then I took the next two largest pieces that didn't have buttonholes in the middle of them and overlapped them in the middle between the two end pieces.

I pinned the snot out of all the scraps to keep them in place and on the pattern piece, and flipped the whole thing over.  Since I forgot to add seam allowance to my toile waistband, I eeked out another inch width to give myself 1/2 inch seam allowance.  More than enough!

I cut out the waistband piece and flipped it over.  Then I pinned the two overlapped pieces together and zig zagged the pieces together from the top.  This reduced bulk like crazy, especially if you trim the overlap from the underside.  I was extremely careful with the placement of this overlap, because now when I fold the piece in half, this seam does not show on one side!

Then all I did was trim the pieces so that I could sew the side pieces to the patched middle piece (at an angle to reduce bulk when folded in half), and pressed the seams flat.

A matching pair of nearly-invisible seams will be all that's visible from the right side of the jacket.  How's that for making it work?!