Fit-Along Announcement!

I'm so excited to announce a special collaboration between three amazing companies in the sewing industry! Fabric Mart, Palmer/Pletsch and McCall Pattern Company are coming together to bring you the Fabric Mart Fit-Along! This project has been in the works for a couple months and I think it's a great opportunity for beginning sewers, sewers that have never used the Palmer/Pletsch tissue fitting method or someone that wants to brush up on their pattern fitting skills.

Melissa Watson, designer for McCall Pattern Company and a certified sewing instructor for Palmer/ Pletsch, & Julie Brown (me) Fabric Buyer and Wholesale Manager at Fabric Mart teamed up to take you through the steps of fitting a pattern on your body using the Palmer/Pletsch Tissue Fitting Method. In particular, we are focusing on how to fit patterns suitable for knits. (This is slightly different than tissue fitting patterns suitable for wovens.) This method is the fastest and easiest way to get a great fit with your sewing patterns. Things you learn through these videos can be used in your other sewing projects, too. Learn all the details about the Fit-Along HERE.

And, every Saturday in February 2016, we will introduce a new video until at the end we will have a finished garment.

Melissa will be fitting McCall's 7246 on me (Julie) and then fabric fitting the garment on me. You will get to see the entire process from start to finish through this Fit-Along. I will also be talking about fabric options for this pattern.

We will also be selling fabric kits to go along with the video. The kits will include fabric used in the video so you can make your very own wrap dress. Plus, the first 50 sold will get a FREE sample of PerfectFuse interfacing. (Enough to use for your project.) Fabric kits are almost finished and will be available soon.

We've released a trailer to get you inspired, check it out! And, every Saturday in February 2016, we will introduce a new video until at the end we will have a finished garment. We hope you will join in the fun!

~ Julie

Made By A Fabricista: Liberty Snow Day

Hi everyone! While we’ve been blanketed with snow out here in Southeastern PA, I decided to conquer my fear of button holes and make NewLook pattern N6749. I was able to snag a few yards of the Jess + Jean print Liberty of London Tana Lawn for it. It’s always exciting when Fabric Mart is able to get Liberty fabrics in! I always make sure to grab some. Cutting into a beautiful piece of tana lawn is scary every time. The fabric is such good quality, I’m afraid to mess it up! I had to be extra careful as this is also the first directional pattern I’ve worked with. But one of my assistants made sure all of my pieces were laid correctly. Something I wanted to try out with this dress was finishing the inside seams using the overlock stitch on my domestic machine. Normally I would french seam, but it was nice to not have to worry about cutting seam allowance in half, sewing, trimming, flipping, and sewing again. Next time I would cut the seam allowance back before overlocking, but I thin...

Made By A Fabricista: Embracing Winter in Wool Boucle

As winter drags on, the cold weather is such a bummer to me and feeling uncomfortable and cold so often is rough. Meanwhile, I listened to a podcast all about how people in very northern countries deal better with the onset of dark, freezing winter with a radically different mindset of embracing the inevitable season by reframing the chill as refreshing and the opportunity to spend most time indoors as cozy. I can do that! I found a gorgeous, quintessential wool boucle suiting in black and white to make myself a luxurious outer layer while I’m outside attempting to embrace the sting of dry winter air… It’s kind of working. So classic, so chic! Wearing boucle is always an uptown move and I certainly do feel sophisticated in it. This black and white houndstooth combination feels especially Old Hollywood, and what a treat to make something with this! I sewed the Daphne Jacket from Vivian Shao Chen. There are no closures, and the shape is boxy and very easy to wear over multipl...

Made By A Fabricista: Sewing + Running

It’s not every day that I get to mix two of my favorite hobbies. Especially when one hobby is sewing and the other is running. You can’t sew and run at the same time, but, you can go running in something that you sewed! With this realization, I embarked on my first hobby-merging adventure. We’ve had some frigid temperatures in Pennsylvania this winter. Since I’m an outside, stroller-pushing runner, I bundle up my son and myself before I hit the road. The temperature feels 20 degrees warmer for outside runners than the outside air. For the children being pushed in the stroller though, it feels about 20 degrees colder. With these differences in temperature for each of us, layering is the only thing that ensures that we both stay perfectly warm. My running wardrobe has been lacking a warm top layer. My son’s wardrobe would also benefit from having another warm layer, so I knew pullovers were what I should make. Inspired by a name-brand ¼ button-down fleece pullover I saw,...

Fabric Mart Fabricistas

Search This Blog