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!

Made by a Fabricista: A Work Wardrobe with a $50 Fabric Budget

Can you save money by sewing your own clothes? Well, that all depends on a lot of factors! I decided to challenge myself to make a new Spring work wardrobe with a $50 budget for fabric. I know, I know- that doesn't include your patterns, notions and miscellaneous things like interfacing and lining. For me, those are already sunk costs, because I already have them. By ordering during one of Fabric Mart's $2/$3/$4 sales, I was able to make 8 items- 2 pants, 1 skirt, 1 dress, and 3 tops. Here's my exact order:

This took me about 6 weeks once I started. I usually sew after dinner for about an hour or two every day. It's my relaxation time. I dove right in the deep end with the jacket first.
I absolutely love this fabric! It is so bright and cheery. I made the jacket with Vogue 2957, an out of print Anne Klein designer pattern.

The fabric is a Milly Cady suiting which I found challenging to work with. It feels delightful, but it is tough as nails. I started…

Fabricista Guest Post: "Julie's Picks" Goes to the Opera

Hello, fellow fabric enthusiasts and sewers alike ! My name is Mary Martha and I am thrilled to be presenting a guest post for Fabric Mart's Fabricista blog. As a bit of background, I fell madly in love with opera in 2015 when I attended my first performance in a movie theater as part of the Metropolitan Opera's "Live in HD" simulcasts, which projects live staged operas in New York City into cinemas worldwide via satellite. (They're fantastic !) Since the start, I have dressed the part of the characters when attending these performances, beginning with outfits fashioned from scarves and skirts in my mother's closet to more ornate costumes. It was during this time that I taught myself to sew using a sewing machine and I haven't looked back ─ my life was changed forever !
In December 2018, I subscribed to Julie's Picks swatch club as an educational experience: I wanted to expand my knowledge of different fabrics besides the typical polyester satins I h…

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