Fabric Mart Fabricistas

Summer is winding down and it's Renaissance Faire season in Maryland !  I've never sewn up a costume for myself before & my son thought it would be way cool to dress up this year (he'll be a knight, I'm working on that one still.)  By no means did I make a "historically correct" outfit here, and I could still breathe & move about (relatively!) well while my vest was laced up.  I used Simplicity 5582 , View C.  I cut a size 14 for all three garments, but needed to alter the paper pattern to fit my figure.  Overall, this pattern was easy to work with and I really love the results. I checked out what colors were appropriate for paupers of the Renaissance era, obviously natural whites & beige's seemed suitable... I learned that purple was off limits to lower class folks but blue was often a sign of servitude.  I wasn't doing Anne Boleyn or another royal wife, so pauper I will be!     Check out how huge the ch...

Sharing my love for sewing is something that I am passionate about. For the last 5 years, I’ve organized an afterschool sewing club for 5th graders at a local elementary school. This has been so much fun and so rewarding that I thought I would share with you some of the things that I did to get it started, and some of the things that I’ve learned along the way.  Getting a club of any kind started in the schools requires both finding students that are interested and finding supportive people in the administration. Here are some tips for finding both of these things:   Pick a school that you think might be interested and call to speak with someone at that school in the administration, such as a principal or community involvement coordinator, to see if after-school clubs are possible. This may seem intimidating, but from my experience, school administrators are devoted to providing their students with enriching experiences, and will jump at the chance to expose the...

Can you believe how fast summer is flying by? It's almost Labor Day! So despite the fact that it has been insanely hot here in the southeast and will likely stay that way weeks after the " unofficial end of summer " it's almost time for me to start sewing for fall. If you follow me either here or on my blog you know that dresses are my favorite thing to sew and I sew them year round. Simplicity 8264 is a great transition dress due to it's sleeve length and recommendation of heavier wovens such as brocade, damask, sateen or denim.  When I saw this floral printed denim I just had to have it for this dress. Unfortunately it is sold out, I almost didn't get any myself. There aren't any other printed denims available but there are several floral brocades ( here ) that I think will work nicely. On to the dress itself...the dress came together easily thanks to clear instructions. My least favorite part was creating the neck and sl...

The moment you have all been waiting for...the Fashion Challenge contestants have been announced! We had LOTS of people submit entries over the past month and as always, it is so hard to select just 6 people out of a large number of talented seamstresses. I think this challenge will have a good mix of bloggers you may already follow and few newbies that you will get to know through the challenge.  Challenge begins Friday, September 1! Don't forget you can follow along with the challenges. Just used #Fabricista5 when posting a photo of your project to Facebook or Instagram. (The photo must go along with the challenge for that week.) Each week, one winner will be selected to win a prize.  Here are the contestants: Danesha from Classyfied Life Marica from Overdrive - Life After 30 Victoria from Very Blissful Bianca from Thanks! I made them! Sew can you. Lindsay from Lindsay Baker Co. Carmen from See Carmen Sew Congrats to all ...

During summer I am able to sew much more than I can sew in the rest of the year.  Since I teach full time (middle school!), I find I am so busy that I can only sew a project (or two) a month during the school year.  But summer?  I get all my sewing mojo back and really get into gear.  This last make for the Fabric Mart blog for this summer is probably one of my all time favorite makes, ever.  I knew I would be heading to Mexico on a cruise with my aunt, and I knew I would want to bring this Burda dress I made for this blog in July, so I asked the folks at Fabric Mart if they would send me some yellow green Nanette Lepore fabric with red, green, and white accents along with a Charlie Caftan pattern (by Closet Case Files) , as the two pieces would serve together well as a base for the rest of my travel wardrobe. I wore the dress/coverup in Mexico as a coverup, but I ended up wearing it last Sunday as a dress, and it does serve both purposes quite well. ...

As many of you can probably relate, finding maternity clothes can be a hard task! I don't want to spend a lot of money on them but I also need to be comfortable. And as my baby bump grows, my regular clothes are getting tighter and tighter.  Thankfully as a sewist, I have the ability to sew maternity clothes that will fit and I will like. I have already remade the tops of a few over-the-belly pants and took older pairs of regular shorts and added an over-the-belly band. That's been helpful for sure! (I think the over-the-belly pants are so uncomfortable. I make my belly bands a little bigger while still holding my pants on me.) Being the frugal person that I am, I REALLY don't want to make a lot of garments that will only be used in pregnancy (and for a time in post pregnancy.) I want things that I can adjust later to fit my new "regular" body. Therefore I have sewn a lot of tunics and dresses that have plenty of room to grow but will still be stylish afterwar...