27/09/2026
Shed 11 - Scale Skirt Step One
This is where my scale skirts begin, by shopping my own stash, by pulling out the tiny squares of fabric in a specific color palette, grabbing the different textures and prints that will all be cut into scales and eventually sewn in ever decreasing circles around a full circle skirt.
If you’ve ever given me fabric, in the form of a scrap, a damaged item, an off cut or in some very generous cases large pieces of unused materials then it’s highly likely this is where it lives.
It might look like chaos but there’s a method to my madness and I can probably tell you where the smallest little offcut of a certain fabric is.
Alongside the fabric are buttons and cotton reels and cones, trims and fringing and laces and zips and oh so many patterns. There’s velvet and lace and linings and interfacing and sequins and beads.
And the plan is that it will all be used. Sometimes fabric sits in there for years before it gets used, sometimes fabrics don’t even see the inside of Shed 11 before they get allocated for a project. Sometimes I know right away what the material will be used for, sometimes inspiration strikes when I least expect it, sometimes it sits there until someone else comes to me with an idea or a request.
Even the shed itself is repurposed, it used to be my brothers prep shed, now it’s a fabric hoarders storage.
It gets added to by the generosity of friends and strangers, of people with the same mindset who don’t want to see good fabrics end up in landfill or packed away with no chance of a future. It gets added to by me through my visits to scrap stores and charity shops, I’m simply unable to walk past good fabric if I think I might even have the slightest possibility of finding a use for it.
I’ll keep and store any piece of fabric over 5cm square and the smaller pieces sit in pillow cases waiting to be made into stuffing for dolls or animals or cushions.
