Made by a Fabricista: Border Prints Are The Best!

Happy fall everyone! I love making dresses for the cold months. You can layer them with a jacket, wear tights and show off cute boots. I found this gorgeous border print and knew it would be a dress. Right? Aren't the colors just beautiful? This appears to be sold out, but FM always has gorgeous ITY knits (Which are on sale this weekend 11/10-11/11!) and if you search the designer section often, you'll come across some pretty, pretty pieces.

I used my trusty old McCall's 6886 to create this dress, but this time with long sleeves and the midi-length. If you've never seen this pattern, you need to get out more! It's well drafted and ripe for creativity.

Playing with this print was great fun! This time, I decided to use the border on the sleeves and I cut the dress out on the lengthwise grain, paying careful attention to where the various parts of the print matched certain prominent body parts, know what I mean? ;)

I knew I wanted to use some of that fun border on the neckband and that was the highlight (I think) of the front. It gives the dress some contrast and I think it ties the design of the sleeves to the remainder of the dress.

One thing to mention...test the lengthwise and cross-wise grains as you are planning your layout and design. With this particular knit, the lengthwise grain had a lot more stretch than the crosswise, and I knew in the finished garment it would effect the stretch if I didn't pay close attention. With a close-fitting dress, you want the greatest amount of stretch going around your body. That greatly effected my decision on how to lay this out. You can make it work either way, but just know you'll need to adjust somewhat depending on how much difference there is when you compare stretchyness across both grains.

I love sewing tools and FM has some great ones to use with knits. SewKeysE tapes are amazing to work with and allow you to sew with precision!

This was a fun make! I hope you'll try a border print...they are so inspiring!

Thanks for reading!

Sue from Ilove2sew!

Meet the Fabricistas of 2021!

We had an overwhelming response when we put out a casting call searching for new sewists to join our Fabric Mart Fabricista family this year. With over 100 responses from talented Bloggers, YouTubers, & Instagramers throughout the country we knew we would have to increase the amount of spaces we we're offering this year. We decided to offer both bi-monthly & quarterly spots this year. And now we're so excited to be giving you a sneak peak of the thirty (Yes 30!) Fabric Mart Fabricistas that you will see through out 2021! Scroll down to learn a little bit about each of them. KATIE | @kak513 Hello all, I'm Katie and I reside in southern California. I adore sewing and I find so much joy in creating clothing I can actually wear, it's like an art project that I can't help but show off every time I get dressed. All the sewists who share their shortcuts and tips and gorgeous clothing on social media inspire me. I really love how sewing is skill I can cont

Made by a Fabricista: Papercut Patterns Stacker Jacket

Hello sewing friends! I'm truly delighted to join the wildly talented Fabricistas to share some of my sewing projects in 2021. Sewing has been very helpful for me with the lockdown happening; each project forces me to focus on something specific and completing each garment goal is highly satisfying. My wardrobe is definitely coming out of this whole era the most impressive it's ever been! Lately I've been eyeing some lighter jacket patterns. Living in southern California means that real winter weather never arrives, but I tend to run cold anyway and love to layer up to stave off the shivering. I settled on the Stacker Jacket from Papercut Patterns. The boxier style means I can throw it on over another shirt layer (or two!) without feeling like I'm too constrained, and I like the more cropped look since I don't need too much heavy coverage for weather that will soon be warming up around here. This was my first time using a paper pattern from an indie designer, and

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