From Hill Tribe Skirt to Cushion Cover

A little while ago, I purchased a lovely, old Hmong skirt online. These skirts are usually made of very long and narrow fabric panels that are then gathered into pleats on one side. As every skirt is composed of about three such panels, the total fabric length easily amounts to 15 meters! The lowest panel of this particular skirt featured beautiful indigo batik and sewn-on panels of differently coloured fabrics, which were quite stained in places.

I figured that I actually liked the reverse side of the fabric better - without the panels and with a more diffuse batik pattern. As I couldn’t see a way to remove the stains, I decided to dye the panel in different colours ending up with six shades of over-dyed vintage Hmong batik!

I removed the sewn-on panels and combined two differently coloured sections to form three cushion covers. For closure, I used old and sturdy metal zippers and pepped them up with pieces of brightly coloured cords hand-braided by Bedouin women in Sinai.

And here the result!