Fabric Mart Fabricistas

Happy first Friday of a new month March!  I am excited to return with 2 new makes that I have been wanting to add to my closet.  Even though I didn’t make half the garments I had in the queue for February, I am truly proud of the pieces I created.  Since I became an ambassador for Husqvarna Viking, I have been dreading learning buttonholes on my new machines.  After mastering it right when the pandemic hit on my Brother sewing machine, I took a hiatus, and then fear set in.   Over the Christmas break, I decided to tackle my fears and watch videos on YouTube and practice. I was in shock at how easy it is to create a buttonhole.  The machine is basically 2 simple steps: plug, align, and snap the foot on.   Carrot/Raspberry 100% Linen Yarn-Dyed Shirt-Weight Woven 58W - SKU: UKD7483r I made a commitment to myself in 2022 that I will attempt to do at least 1 buttonhole garment a month, learn and master 1 new sewing skill and write at least 1 blog ...

This month I was sewing for TWO!  No! I’m not pregnant! Most of the time I guess I’m a selfish sewer. So after my husband asking for the millionth time for me to make something for him I did! Of course I got extra fabric just in case and at the last second I could make something for me too (I really did sew my shirt together at the last second). He had been asking for a button down shirt so I obliged. Let’s get into the details, shall we? I found the perfect fabric for shirt making. It was the Yale Blue 100% Cotton Chambray.  It was the the perfect weight and the right color for Tim.  I already had brown buttons in my stash so I used those on both of our shirts.  I was going for a more causal button down shirt feel and I think the brown buttons added to that.  Tim’s shirt was made using the Thread Theory Fairfield Button Up pattern.  Thread Theory was a new pattern company for me and I was really pleased with the drafting and the instructions.  One thi...

During my first Fabricista post in February 2021, I dedicated a make to the Pantone colors of the year: Illuminating (a yellow) and ultimate gray. I thought it would be fun to continue the tradition and dedicate this February’s make to the 2022 Color of the Year: Very Peri. This marks the first time Pantone has created a color for their Color of the Year series. Blue with violet-red undertones, Very Peri “displays a spritely, joyous attitude and dynamic presence that encourages courageous creativity and imaginative expressions”. I’ve also been inspired by the recent trend of making quilt coats, so I thought I’d pair the two trends and make my own quilted coat. I’ve always considered myself firmly on team garment sewing, but I thought this was a great opportunity to dabble in quilting. I scoured the Fabric Mart website for ideas and found a really beautiful grape-colored linen which, in my head, was the closest I could get to Very Peri. It’s a yarn-dyed chambray linen and very lightwei...

I’m thrilled to be back as a Fabric Mart Fabricista for 2022! This year I’m challenging myself to sew Fabricista projects that either expand my skills or are stylistically different from what I have sewn or worn in the past. At the end of this post, I’ll tell you how this make met that goal. Here in the North, we’re watching the snow fall and know that we have a few more weeks of the white stuff and freezing temperatures but we are planning for warmer days! For this Fabricista make, I made an anorak that will get me through late winter and early spring days.  A couple of years ago I bought Simplicity 8843 (an unlined anorak) and that seemed like a great project for this time of year. I looked through Fabric Mart’s catalogue for the perfect fabric and stopped when I saw this 100% cotton twill in a fun and colorful floral and skulls print.  The brilliant tones in this print are nothing like traditional pale spring colors! Those greens, blues, corals and pinks will pop against sn...

Hi everyone!  Today I am sharing my Noemi dress #M8091, by McCalls patterns. This is dress is perfect for the summer & the winter. It originally is displayed as a summer dress, & I love that the fabric I chose can be worn in both seasons. You can style this up with boots, heels, or sandals. I chose view C, which is a longer version of the dress with bow for straps.   When creating the dress, I had to adjust the pattern to fit my measurements. I find it hard sometimes to grade McCalls patterns; for some reason when I adjust & add to it, it tends to get messy during the production of it. This dress was relatively simple to make, however, the numerous alterations really held me up. Sometimes it’s hard for me to judge the accuracy of a pattern, simply because I have to alter every single “big 4” pattern. I have many years in pattern making, but it can be hard when it not a pattern of your own, or you don’t have a mannequin to rely on.  On a better note, the f...