Skip to main content

Winner of 1st Challenge & 2nd Challenge Announced: It's All About the Fit

Wow. Let me tell you how hard this first challenge was to judge. There were a ton of creative ideas and great craftsmanship. It is amazing though what can happen when you get judges together and votes and put them together. 


The winner of the 1st Challenge is...




Congratulations! Your Scout Tee had a lot of detail, but was not overpowering. You still kept the essence of the Scout Tee in your design and the color contrast worked well. Great job!

You are the winner of two free patterns from Grainline Studio and move onto the next challenge!

Unfortunately, the person with the lowest score will be "going home." We're sorry to see Jenese from Needles and Fashion leave the challenge. 

Thank you to ALL the ladies for doing an amazing job. I cannot keep saying how hard this was for us!

Winner of the Flickr Page: Michelle is the winner of a free pattern from Grainline Studio. This was a randomly selected drawing. Please email me (fabricmartblog{@}gmail.com) to claim your prize. 

_________________________________________________________________


2nd Challenge: It's All About the Fit

Fit is an important part of sewing any garment and probably the hardest thing for any sewer to understand and master. From my own experience, I try to improve fit in every garment that I make. Fit can also be determined by the kind of fabric you use and what pattern you choose. It can also be determined by fashion trends. Loose fitting garments have more room in them, but they still have a shape and fit. More fitted garments also need to fit properly. When you have "pulls or lines" in your fabric, that shows that the garment may be a little too tight. It takes a lot of practice and patience to get a well fitted garment! 



There are a number of fit methods that can be found in books, videos and blogs. Palmer/Pletsch is one of the most popular fit experts in the sewing community. They specialize in a tissue paper fit method and refine with sew as you go fitting techniques. Our guest judge for this week learned the Palmer/Pletsch method.

This week's challenge is inspired by the expertise of the guest judge, Pamela Leggett, from Pamela's Patterns! Pamela is an expert on pattern fitting. She will be giving you feedback on your garment fitting! 

The challenge is: Create one well fitted garment out of a solid fabric. The solid fabric will allow us to see how it fits. You can make a dress, top, pants, skirt, whatever will show is a well fitted garment for your body type. 

Remember, fit doesn't mean tight! But if you make a snug garment, remember what I mentioned in the intro paragraph. 

We will be judging on a 1-10 scale (10 being the highest) using the following criteria: 

Fit - Fit is going to be taken into more consideration in this challenge than any other challenge. Does the garment fit well? Share with us any alterations you made to make this garment fit your body better. If you're trying to disguise a problem area, share that information with us too! There are readers all over the world that can relate to your problem area!

Craftsmanship - Did you put a lot of care into the construction? Top-stitching straight, careful overall construction, etc. 

Presentation - While we totally understand not everyone has a professional camera and the perfect backdrop for photographing their creations, (Me included!!) you are in front of a world of other sewers! Make yourself look presentable. Submit a photo of the front, back and side view of the garment, as well as a "presentation photo" (this should be the best photo!) Detail photos are also requested so we can be better judges. So if you do some embellishing or a specific technique, zoom in and share with us! (Not all photos may be used in the final blog post, but shared with the judges.)

Tell us about your garment? What made you decide to select the pattern? What kind of fabric did you choose and why? How can you use this solid garment in your wardrobe?

The Guest Judge will be Pamela Leggett from Pamela's Patterns! Pamela is a fit expert and teacher of the Palmer/Pletsch Fit methods. You can learn more about Pamela through an exclusive interview here. 
__________________________________________________________________
Entries are due by Tuesday, September 16th, with viewer judging on Wednesday, September 17th-Thursday, September 18th. The winner will be announced Friday, September 19th and a new challenge will begin!

PRIZES!!
The winner of the 1st challenge will receive three free patterns of their choice from Pamela's Patterns!


Reader Participation! 
Don't forget!! If you are watching from the sidelines, you can participate in the challenge too! Head on over to our Flickr page and upload your finished garment. Follow the same rules as the Challenge participants. Upload a photo by Wednesday, September 17th (made during the challenge please, no previously made items!) We will have a random drawing for the Flickr winner! They will win one free pattern from Pamela's Patterns. (All prizes are sent to winner at the end of the challenge.) NOTE: Please label your photo with "Challenge 2" so we are able to tell each challenge apart. Thanks!

Ready, set, go!!

Comments

  1. Congrats Beth! You all did such a fantastic job! I was so inspired by all of you. A hard round to judge indeed!

    ReplyDelete
  2. To quote a comic my son likes: "Challenge considered, challenge accepted." This challenge really is perfect timing - I have never mastered fitting, and pants especially... ugh. But a few days ago I made a muslin of shorts and I am trying to make them fit better. LOL, many changes made from the original pattern! So, this weekend I will make at least one more pair and see if I can get them to fit decently. My goal is to make a pair of shorts that doesn't embarrass me in front of the judges. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congratulations! Beautiful top. Can't wait to see the next challenge.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for leaving a comment! All comments are reviewed before posting to help us eliminate spam. Your comment will be posted within 24 hours.

Popular Posts You Might Like

Made By A Fabricista: Why Sew A Muslin

Here it is, my September blog post featuring Newlook N6692 and this pretty rayon challis from Fabric Mart! This pattern style is so in right now. The square neckline, cute puff sleeves and the tiered skirt are all exactly what I was looking for in a summer dress. As always I started with making a muslin first!  Let’s get into why it’s important to start with a muslin.  A muslin is basically a practice garment. It prevents you from cutting into your good fabric prematurely.  I usually use a muslin fabric (natural cotton) but you should also consider using a fabric that is the same weight as your fashion fabric. This will give you a truer gauge of how the garment is going to lay in the final fabric. Anytime I try out a new pattern company I make a muslin. This was my first time using a Newlook pattern so I need to know what the ease would be like for this pattern. Also I need to see how the bust would fit me and where I would need to make adjustments. Plus there were some new techniques

Made By A Fabricista: The Love of Sewing - Basic Pieces for a Beginner

Happy Friday All! It has been a while since I made myself a dress. I am excited to sew after not making anything since my last post (whew) and finally sharing some photos.  This past summer has been a roller coaster journey with plans to release a small collection and then deciding that right before the launch to postpone. Sewing has brought me joy over the past 8 years and the mere fact to sew daily for orders had me in a panic mode. I really don’t want to walk away from my craft due to burn out  and decided that if I do sew for others, it would be only for local clients. Moreover, If next year I decide to launch, it would be seasonal and not year round. I really want to share my talent and love for sewing with others but don’t want it to be a full time job and lose the passion in me.  After a bit of soul searching, teaching and sharing my talent with my community will always be my first love. For the past 2 summers, I was blessed to partner with two nonprofit organizations’ local sum

Made By A Fabricista: End of Summer

Summer is nearing to an end but here where I am in Texas the heat isn’t letting up any time soon!  I still have plenty of time to get a few more summer looks out of the way.  In this blog I will be sharing two separate projects. The first project is this denim set; I had the inspiration saved on my list of makes to make.  For this project I got this gorgeous denim and matching thread to start my project. Yes, Fabric Mart will match the thread to your fabric perfectly and with my favorite thread brand Gutermann.  The denim had a very great weight and wasn’t too stiff.  It was very starchy when it arrived, so I did a prewash before working with it.  I’m so glad I did because it had a lot of dye saturated in which would not have been great for the skin and other clothes. For the first part of the set, I drafted a corset with the scallop edge cups, such a cute detail!   To start I used my bodice sloper to make the corset, I was not worried about the design details and focused more on