Sew Frosting – Marimekko skirt plans

Hi, I got a late start to the Sew Frosting party – the sewing challenge hosted by Heather Lou  Closet Case Patterns and Kelli of True Bias, encouraging people to sew “frosting” (frivolous and fun!) as opposed to “cake” (basics and staples). For more about the challenge, see Heather Lou’s blog post and search the hashtag #sewfrosting on Instagram to see all the wonderful makes.

When I  thought about what “frosting” fabrics I had, I immediately thought about this striking Marimekko fabric I got at Crate and Barrel several years ago. I remember it was discounted –not by much – but I loved the colors so I splurged on 1 1/3 yards (~1.2 meters) of this cotton fabric from Finland.

Even though it was holiday fabric – note the trees – the colorway didn’t quite say Christmas so I thought it could be used for other purposes. Yesterday I searched for this fabric online to see what it was called. I found other colorways of this fabric and learned that it was called Tultakero. The selvage of my yardage didn’t have the name on it.

Tultakero

I spotted this red, green and white version of Tultakero on eBay. As you can see, it has more of that holiday feel.

The colorway I have doesn’t have any green in it; instead, it features red, magenta, purple, deep yellow and dark violet. Here’s another section of the fabric.

Sewing my stash

I have been (mostly) sticking to my fabric fast this year, trying to sew my stash rather than shop for new fabric. This fabric is 57″ wide and I will cut it in half and use one piece for the skirt front and another for the back.

I want to use inverted pleats or maybe a combination of inverted pleats in the back and one big pleat or fold in the front. I’ll use one of my favorite skirt patterns – the Deer and Doe Chardon as my jumping off point. I’ve made five versions of it – from color blocked to maxi. The most recent one I made I changed the waist by removing a few of the front pleats to make an adjustable waist with a silk ribbon tie.

I tend to gravitate towards the same shades of red, rose and plum. I knew I had a solid red cotton and a fuchsia cotton. I just had to dig around to find them (which bin? which drawer?). I found the two fabrics and also discovered that I have a wide Petersham ribbon that perfectly matches one of the colors in the Marimekko fabric as you can see below.

I will color block the skirt with maybe the solid red and fuchsia above and below the print. Or maybe the print at the top? I’m not sure.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to start or finish sewing this before the Sew Frosting deadline of Nov. 30 because I sprained my right ankle just before Thanksgiving. 🙁 So I needed to stay off my foot, instead of standing to cut my fabric or using the pedal on my sewing machine. But the good news is that my ankle is feeling much better and I can start making this skirt!

Thanks to Heather Lou and Kelli for the inspiration!