When I had finished my 11th century bliaut, there were pretty big scraps left of the fine woollen fabric.

This was years ago, and I have had so many different plans for the scraps. I have seen such pretty vests, sewn by other history bounding gurus, and now I wanted one for myself. I starred by draping a toille.

I used a checked fabric from the thrift store for flatlining.

Much was sew on machine, but most was actually hand stitched – as every fell stitched seam, hemline and button hole.

Luckily I had some wonderful tiny buttons saved from a beloved but demolished blouse, perfect for this project.

There was still some fabric left after finishing the vest, so I decided to use it for a skirt. The leftovers had such strange shapes that I wisely chose to cut out the same shapes from old bed sheets in order to find out what could be done from what I had at hand. After some days of pondering, a sleepless night gave me the courage to just cut the fabric on feeling, as I usually do with easy models. Without using the toille fabric … 😖 Suddenly the skirt was to short. At last I came up with a way of saving the skirt, using another scrap for the upper part. The tucking of the inserts took some time and it is not quite symmetrical, but it looks quite pretty. On this picture, though, it looks like a catastrophe, as I have obviously pulled the fabric unevenly on the mannequin. 😅

This is what it looks like together with the vest.