Patchwork skirt / Rainbow skirt

I found my inspiration for this skirt in this awesome blog by Megan: http://craftyintentions.blogspot.com/2008/07/and-sewn-into-seams-were-forty-one.html

My skirt is a bit different from hers, but the idea is similar.

I started with lots of pieces of interestingly patterned and coloured fabric which I chopped into squares and then stitched into strips.

The waistband was made by bending the cloth over and stitching it, making a “little channel” through which the belt is passed. i.e. It’s a gathered belt which fits almost any size of waist.

As I am 1.55 m tall (5’1″), the skirt needed to be 110 cm long (43″). So each little “patch” is 13 x 13 cm (5.1″ square), with 1.5 cm (0.6″) margin included for stitching.

I had 9 tiers of differently colored patches. Each tier is 1½ times longer than the previous (more or less):

1. White layer – 10cm (4″) wide belt
2. Pink tier – 12 patches
3. Red tier – 18 patches
4. Orange tier – 27 patches
5. Yellow – 44
6. Light Green – 66
7. Dark Green – 103
8. Light Aqua – 155
9. Light Blue – 233
10. Dark Blue – 350

So the next thing was to ruffle it and stich the layers together. I waited for a nice cool evening (the temperature per day reached 36C / 97F) and started my epic journey. So if you have been following – the dark blue line is 35m (­~115 ft) long, and the light blue 23m and a bit (~75 ft).

Here is the result – before the thread end tying, which took me 3 days to complete.

Me and Šuriks (the dog) a month after starting the project.