A piece about piecing

Once upon a time, anyone could have told you that bird is the word. But now the world has changed, history becomes legend, legend becomes myth, and the birds work for the bourgeoisie, so I’m declaring a new word: economy. 

No, not that kind of economy.

That is, fabric economy. I've talked about this concept before, but it's worth illustrating in more detail because it's so foreign to many people today. 

When you pick up a pattern to consult its yardage estimates, that number is often aiming high. The amount of fabric listed is typically enough to cut all your pattern pieces from whole cloth and on the correct grain. This Threads Magazine article even says specifically to "be sure that all of your pattern pieces fit on your fabric before you begin cutting." That pattern layout, however, leaves a lot of extra scraps.

Everything the light touches is our kingdom...

Clothing once represented a huge expense for people at all levels of society. The convoluted machinations of industry these days shield the average American from the true cost of clothing manufacture, but in the past, the end consumer knew they were paying for all the labor that went into their garments and appreciated the cost as an investment. The Tudor Tailor book makes a fascinating study of clothing's value through 16th-century wills. 

The basic point, though, is that fabric was expensive and people planned accordingly. When you're paying for dozens of yards of fabric to create even a basic wardrobe, you're going to get every usable inch from that material, and you're going to do it in a few distinct ways.

The Trojan horse

You need a court gown (for example), which means big skirt and big gown on top, and obviously you've got to go all out on those fine textiles. However, that big gown is going to hide an awful lot of your skirt real estate... it doesn't all have to be made out of the fancy fabric, does it? 

It most certainly does not. See, what you'll want to do is figure out what parts will definitely be hidden by other layers – accounting for the natural way clothing shifts during wear – and make those parts out of the cheap stuff. It doesn't even have to match colors!

Angela Clayton's 16th century kirtle is a perfect example.
The orange is silk; the beige is polyester.

But that's just small beans. Let's get adventurous.

The corner cutter

Your pattern won't fit perfectly on the fabric? No problem, just piece a bit on. One of my favorite examples of this comes from the show A Stitch in Time, where historian and seamstress Ninya Mikhaila (along with her team) is reconstructing this delicious green gown from the Arnolfini portrait.

Source: The

Even with such a decadent fabric and iconic garment, it's almost certain that piecing was involved because the dress demands a massive expanse of textile. Looking closely at historical clothing from virtually every age before mass industrial manufacturing will uncover this kind of constructive cleverness. 

The Scrappy Doo

This? This is where I live. When you know you have a bunch of bits left over from a different pattern piece being cut out, so you wrangle them like cats into a large enough amalgam. 

I bought the fabric for my orange kirtle knowing I wouldn't use the full yardage – terribly bourgeois of me, I know – so I took a leap of faith (more accurately translated as a leap to faith) and cut out a modern dress first. That first dress had a funny curving shape to its pieces and it left a lot of extra fabric on the table, which I was confident I could make use of. And make use I did!

A blatantly opulent cutting choice.

Like Angela Clayton did on her (much fancier) kirtle above, I placed the nicest fabric – in this case, the non-pieced bits – where it mattered most, right up front. Other areas were... a different story.

My pride in this accomplishment is perhaps unwarranted, but you can take it from my cold, dead hands.

The outer fabric of the back bodice is completely pieced together from those excess cuttings left behind after my modern dress. If you look at the photo above, you can see how asymmetrical the seam lines are, although they make a pretty convincing play. 

Even more obvious, though, is the blissful travesty of the lining. 

It's just so absurd. Please, count the pieces with me: 

Ridiculous. I'm in love.

Thirteen uneven, oddly stitched bits to line only two pattern pieces. All because I refused to cut new fabric when I had all those lovely linen scraps lying around already. 

But think about it: cutting the linings for that entire bodice without piecing would have demanded that I purchase another yard of linen. Maybe that's only a $12 expense now, but in the long run, it's so much more economical to get creative with the materials already on hand. 

So go forth, good reader, and preach the word economy! Shop your stash, save the leftovers, and always remember that piecing is period.