4 yards... can I do it?

About two and a half years ago I ordered several lengths of fabric from a website that was selling out (changing ownership to another company). I don't remember what I paid for it, but it must have been a good price for me to order so many lenghts of fabric... seven!!

Last night I dug into my fabric stash with the intent of making a couple dresses from this fabric. (I'm losing weight right now... currently between a pattern size 18/20- modern size 14/16- and I want to make a dress in each size between my current size and my goal size of a 12- modern 4/6... okay, so that's only two dresses, in sizes 14 and 16). One of the fabrics I pulled out is a plaid shirting that has a cream background with a plaid design of blue and green with a teensy stripe of yellow... almost reminiscent of a Stewart Dress Plaid, except for the blue & green instead of red & black, and the plaid design is identical both vertically and horizontally. I'm too lazy to take a pic but here is a picture of the fabrics from when I bought them... the one I'm talking about is the one in the upper left corner.

I was very sad to discover a label on the fabric, from the online retailer, that said it was 4 yards long. Four yards??? It's 60" wide fabric... but why did I order only 4 yards? I can get a good dress out of 5 yards and I can squeeze one out of 4.5 yards, but 4? Ouch. I pre-washed it in hot water and threw it in the dryer on high (to shrink it) and then I ironed it out... when I measured it I saw that it was 4 yards and 6 inches. Yikes. After a lot of careful thinking, I decided that I will make the dress with narrow coat sleeves, which can be cut vertically (one above the other) out of the side of one of the skirt panels. I can cut the waistband that way too. I cut out the bodice pieces (front bodice and back bodice) and that took 20" of fabric. That leaves me with 130" of fabric. That'll give me three panels that are about 43" long each. I then took half of one of the skirt panels and cut the sleeves out of it, which left me a strip of fabric 4" wide by 43" long, that I can use for a waistband. Two 60" panels and one 30" panel will of course leave me with a skirt that is 150" wide. And if I use my last roll of hoopsteel to make a 90" cage, I can get away with skirts that are 43" long (I need 45" long panels to fit over my 108" cage). I could make it a dress for active work situations, which means I'd need to be 40" or maybe even less than that... but it's such a pretty fabric that I'd rather use it for an "everyday" dress.

Out of all the fabrics I bought, only one of them ended up being more than 4 yards... and that's the teal blue one in the center bottom in the photo. It's 5 yards. And it's my least favorite, LOL. I'm not even sure if it's suitable for 1860's use... it's an uneven plaid with a large repeat. I have no idea what else I'd use it for, though.

The plaid I'm using right now, other than the color, isn't too terribly different from the extant dress at the top of this page... though that one is wool barege, and mine is cotton shirting (very fine herringbone/twilled weave... I'm not exactly sure what type of fabric it is. I just know it's cotton and pretty).