Made by a Fabricista: More Spring Sewing

Hi all!  I have spring fever so bad right now that I simply had to make more separates for the upcoming weather change.  I found these lovely fabrics to make something from.  Sometimes when I order fabric, I know exactly what I am going to make and other times, I literally have either too many ideas or none.  This was the latter.  Although, I loved both choices and knew I’d love the finished product and my prediction was correct!

 I really love this evergreen color right now and this floral chiffon caught my eye!  That color!  Plus, looking at various spring garments for purchase online, they are all so pretty, floral, and floaty so I knew this would end up in my cart.  I just had to bring it home with me.  

It washed, dried, and behaved beautifully.  I chose a very unstructured, simple garment for the design.  Chiffon isn’t hard to sew, but I wanted a simple design to show off this lovely fabric.

While this particular fabric seems to be sold out, there are some lovely choices you can see here: Chiffon

If you’ve never sewn with chiffon before, here are a few tips that I find really helpful.  I use those plastic, sewing binder clips to attach the fabric to my cutting board.  This way it doesn’t shift around so much.  Then I use pattern weights which for me are very large washers my husband purchased at a local hardware store.  If you have a very sharp blade in your rotary cutter, cutting is a breeze.

For needles, I am quite the stickler and use a fresh needle for every project and this is especially important with this type of fabric.  I also use a 60/8 needle and a polyester thread.  If you are interested, here is the pattern I used: 

I deviated from the pattern quite a bit.  

Just as an added sort of precaution, I stay-stitch every seam that has any sort of curve to it when I sew with a lightweight fabric such as chiffon.  The front of this kimono had curved seams as well as the back neckband.

I deviated from the pattern and made bias front bands.  I used a 2.5” ruler and rotary to cut the bias strips, seamed them together and used a liquid starch as I pressed them with the wrong sides together.  Then I basted the seams and then serged the edges.  After serging, I topstitched the bands in place.

To hem this, I simply serged the bottom edge, pressed well using starch and turned twice and then topstitched.  I know, there are numerous ways to make a narrow hem but I didn’t want it that narrow.  Plus, since I serged the other seams, I didn’t want to fuss with a very narrow hem at the bottom when it wouldn’t match throughout.

For this white top, I have to start by saying how lovely this crepe fabric is.  Unfortunately, this is sold out but here are some alternate choices: Crepe

It has just the right amount of stretch to make it comfortable and it was a pleasure to sew.  I don’t think you can ever have too many basic white tops and I just know this will get used frequently.

You don’t need any special techniques or supplies for this fabric.  It was a very fast sew and I just love these two pieces together.

Thanks so much for reading and I hope you are as excited about warm weather as I am!

Sue from Ilove2sew!