Fabric Mart Fabricistas

For the first time this year, the weather consistently rose above 60 degrees.  The long awaited Spring has arrived and hasn't failed me yet (fingers crossed). Today's dressy jumpsuit is courtesy Vogue Pattern 9075 found ( HERE ).   The dabric is a " hot tamale poly/twill suiting " from Fabric Mart. Once I saw the color, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it! This is one of the simplest patterns I've sewn in a while.  In under 3 hours, I had a completed garment.  Instead of lining this top, I opted to create a facing for the center front, and center back pieces, using the original pattern piece.   Once attached, The pattern piece and the facing (both with finished edges) were pressed towards the facing, under stitched, clipped in the curve. I repeated this step for the (2) center back pieces. From here, all other steps should be according to the manufacturer's instruction.  I will be completely honest, this pattern...

When spring rolls around, I go for pretty and stronger colors than I typically wear in the winter. When I saw this designer denim from Leslie Stuart on Fabric Mart's site, I knew exactly what I wanted to create and wear! It is such a pleasure to sew with good quality denim and even more awesome to wear! Vogue 8774 is my favorite TNT and I've made it so many times my pattern tissue is showing a lot of wear even though I am super careful with it! What I love about revisiting an old friend is that you get to truly play with the details and while I wonder about what else I can do to perfect it, I still think this pattern has a ways to go fit-wise but overall, I am very happy with my orange-y jeans!  What a happy color! When prepping my denim, even when I use a good quality denim such as this, I wash and dry it twice before cutting out.  Have you ever bought a pair of jeans that were the perfect length and you washed, dried, put them on an disaster struck-...

I'm sure most of your are familiar with Pattern Review . I am a big fan of Pattern Review for many reasons-- the customer pattern reviews, the classes, and especially the contests! They have at least one contest going on every month, usually sponsored by someone in the sewing industry.  This month Fabric Mart is sponsoring The Wardrobe Contest . Contestants are to make 4 tops, 3 bottoms and 2 of garments of the sewist's choice. All items should coordinate together in some way. I'm really excited to see what all the sewist's create!  We are offering a $100 gift certificate for First Place and $75 gift certificate for Second Place.  Get sewing! The contest ends on May 15th! Are you participating in The Wardrobe Contest? 

It's only days into Spring and I'm ready for my beach vacation, guys!  I've had this two-piece swimsuit pattern combo on my mind for well over a year.  I'm a curvy gal, so I thought I'd play it up with this retro pin-up style two-piece with a bold tropical floral print.  This is a nylon/spandex swimwear fabric with a four-way stretch.  I've lined it with a solid black swimwear knit.  There is a growing list of really nice fabrics here on Fabric Mart perfect for bathing suits ... and it's perfect for other activewear-- I've made numerous running leggings with fabric labeled for swimwear. For my top I used Simplicity 1374 , View B.  I cut and sewed a straight size 16 with zero alterations... besides the addition of cups (more on those in a moment).  It's a great little pattern that took me just over two hours to sew up.  I picked up my swimwear elastic and cups from the local big box fabric store.  I used 3/8" wide elastic for the edg...

Hello everyone and happy Spring!  This is the first time that I've taken photos outdoors since October.  It feels so nice to be outside again!  To celebrate the arrival of Spring, I wanted to make a new dress.  One of the most versatile dresses that I think you can own is a knit wrap dress.  They work for all seasons- just throw on a jacket or cardigan in the winter, and you can make a wrap dress work all year long.  Fabric Mart has all of their knits on sale this week, so this would be the perfect time to try making a wrap dress! The wrap dress was made popular by Diane Von Furstenberg in the 70's.  Have you ever seen a real DVF Wrap dress?  If you go to the Wrap Shop you can see that the average price is $400, and all of the gorgeous variations that they offer.  The one thing that I noticed that they all have in common, is that they are made from silk jersey knit.  I actually tried on an authentic DVF wrap dress once,...

I'm so happy to be back this month on the Fabric Mart blog with my first spring projects, simple and lightweight black pants and a flowy and sophisticated print top. Inspiration for sewing comes from everywhere and I'm thrilled (like everyone else) that I no longer have to organize stacks of torn out pages from catalogs and magazines but now can save anything that inspires me to my  "I Wanna Make This" board  on Pinterest, no papers, no mess.  And this outfit today is inspired by one of those pins. The top is  McCall's 7093 , a brand new tunic pattern with different color block variations.  I made View A (without the slits) in  this geometric viscose print from Fabric Mart. The top is a quick and easy sew and the only changes I made were omitting the slits in the front, taking in the sides 1/2", and adding black bias trim to the neck.  I used the wrong side of a black silk charmeuse I had in my stash.  It can be tricky to ...