Fabric Mart Fabricistas

I'm happy to be back on the blog with my fall sewing icebreaker. I'm finished with my summer sewing and looking to make some pieces for fall even though it's 104 degrees today. Sewing a plaid wool skirt doesn't sound fun at the moment so I wanted something that would work on those all too frequent 90 degree October days when I don't want to wear a sunny yellow halter dress but a skirt and sweater will just make me cranky. A transitional dress is exactly what I need. Shirtdresses are all the rage right now and this J.Crew dress inspired my first project for fall. I've had this Vogue pattern in my stash since the early nineties (seriously....someone needs to give me some tough love about my pattern stash!) and it's perfect. No need to buy a pattern and even better I'm justifying my stash. For my shirtdress knockoff I chose a  J.Crew stretch cotton stripe shirting  from Fabric Mart even though the inspiration dress is made of wool.  In my...

Fall has to be my most favorite season of the year. In South Dakota typically the weather is at its best. The trees, flowers, shrubs are filled with color, and the cool evenings and warm days are delightful. What's a girl to do besides sew some garments that take us from summer to fall and even winter? In swoops a gorgeous suiting from Fabric Mart in black/blue and ivory novelty weave with great body and weight. I knew it would be perfect for the Style Arc Livia jacket.  The colors stated were black and white, but I think the black has a lot of blue in it and found my leather pieces, also from Fabric Mart, were a perfect match!  More on that later!                         I wanted a jacket that would work with jeans for casual Fridays or a skirt or dressier pants for the work week. I love the clean and classic lines and the simple fit. Not too boxy but not fitted either. Cutting and sew...

My birthday is at the very beginning of July, and to celebrate my birthday this year, I made myself a crop top/full skirt combo out of a gorgeous floral cotton sateen from Fabric Mart.  You can see that project here over at my blog.   I tell you all of this with a reason, of course.  When I was asked what I wanted to do for my July make for Fabric Mart, I decided I really wanted to try another version of the crop top/full skirt silhouette, but this time in a bit more of an exaggerated way. Right now this particular kind of outfit is very trendy, as you can see in these examples ( one from Michael Kors , two from J. Crew--this was the one that inspired my look , three on Hailee Steinfeld in Suno ).  What is key for a lot of these outfits ( and in mine ) is the matching top to bottom.  It was out of favor for a long time to do this, often being equated with too formal, too frumpy, or too mumsy.  By using a crop top ( and showing a bare amount of skin--or no...

Attention Sewing Bloggers!  We’re looking for 6 enthusiastic sewing bloggers to participate in the Fabricista Fashion Challenge 3! What is this you may ask? This is a 5-week sewing challenge where you will be given a weekly project to complete to the best of your abilities. Each week will have a criteria for judging and will be judged by some of your favorite personalities in the sewing industry.  All the Details:  The entire  sewing time  for the challenge will run from September 11-October 14. A new challenge will be posted to the public every Friday morning, with the first one being Friday, September 11th.  You will have until the following Tuesday night to submit your entries, so that on Wednesday morning I can post the finished projects.             There will be a total of 4 challenges and they will be posted on: Friday, Sept 11, 18, 25, October 2 (the last week challengers will have 2 weeks to com...

How do you use those lovely home decor prints that are everywhere?  Every fabric store I enter has eons of choices...so many pretty colors, textures, and the heft is just awesome, especially if you want to make something that will withstand some wear and possible tear...enter the overnight bag! Bag 'Front' pocket This is a cute little pattern from Simplicity 2274 , to be precise. I've made duffle bags for the men in my family a few years ago. The girls were a little chuffed to say the least. When I spied this pretty home decor print on Fabric Mart's site, I knew it had to be and now one lucky lady would get her own bag! Plenty of room, even if you are a messy packer, like me! Home decor fabric is lovely to work with. I used two yards of it for the bag and enough left over to make a little matching clutch to use for whatever the lucky daughter or daughter-in-law likes. The colors are vibrant and the design is woven into the fabric. This is a nice, quality...

Are you familiar with voile? Voile is a lightweight, soft fabric that you can see through slightly and can be made from cotton, silk or wool.   It is the French word for veil, pronounced “vwal”, but here in the states, we pronounce it with a long “o”, like in boil. It’s significantly lighter weight than quilting cottons, but not as sheer as chiffon, making it the perfect fabric for summer weight clothing.    Fabric Mart has a huge selection of it right now , and I grabbed up three coordinating prints to make myself a deluxe set of summer pajamas and coordinating robe.   I had purchased a coordinating pajama/robe set like this many years ago, and it was very expensive.   I loved it and wore it until it was faded and threadbare.   I haven’t seen a similar set in stores since then, but I knew that I could easily duplicate it if I could ever find the perfect fabric. This voile had a crisp hand, which made it easy to sew.   I did nee...