Skip to main content

Made By A Fabricista: Breezy Summer Style with Rayon Challis from Fabric Mart.

Hey there my sewing friends!  Summer is here and I am all for it.  It has been exceptionally hot here in Southwest Florida. We have had temps in the high 90’s.  I want to keep cool and comfortable and still look pulled together this summer.  That’s why I chose rayon challis for this month’s summer make.  

Rayon Challis is lightweight, flowy, soft and extremely comfortable to wear. It’s an excellent choice for summer outfits.  It has a beautiful drape making it an excellent choice for maxis, tops, dresses, and shorts. The fabric is lightweight and depending upon your sewing project you may need to use a lining with this fabric. Also use a lightweight interfacing when working with rayon challis.  If you are a beginner at sewing, you may find the fabric a bit fiddly to work with, but the end result is so worth it.  Fabric Mart has beautiful challis fabric to choose from. I chose this fun tropical print on an off-white background.

This summer season vests are in.  I love the ease of wearing a vest style top, so I chose one of my favorite patterns.  New Look 6598 view E.  I used self-covered buttons to elevate the look and not compete with the fun tropical print.

I paired the vest with elastic waist shorts from New Look 6737 for a fun summer short set.   The challis fabric is perfect for the breezy style shorts.  I love the movement and comfort of these shorts!


This set can be dressed up or down.  When I wear a kitten heel shoe, I feel the outfit is perfect for a summer luncheon event or even to wear to church on a hot Sunday morning.  If I’m on vacation, I can wear the two pieces with white tennis shoes as I stroll along window shopping.

With the fabric left over I made a quick wide elastic waist skirt using New Look 6354.  The skirt is an easy 2 hour sew.  I made view F.  The skirt works with the vest beautifully. 

Each piece can be mixed with other pieces in my closet. The shorts and skirt work well with tee shirts or button-up/tie front tops.  The vest can be worn over a layering piece allowing for wear in cooler environments. Changing up jewelry and shoes makes it easy to transition from day to night with these fun summer pieces. 

I have upcoming plans to make drawstring flowy pants and a sundress with a few other pieces of rayon challis that I recently acquired.  Make sure you are following my Instagram or YouTube channel to see how they turn out.  Thank you, Fabric Mart, for this fun fabric.  This is my new favorite summer outfit.  

CARMEN  |  @carmensalome


Unfortunately Fabric Mart Fabrics sell out quickly!
You can find similar fabrics by shopping the following categories: CHALLIS.

Comments

  1. What a lovely combo! You did a fabulous job pairing fabric with patterns.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Really cute pieces, Carmen! You wear them well.💕 —Viv

    ReplyDelete
  3. Carmen, such a great look on you! I like all three pieces, And I’m sure they will see a lot of wear in this hot hot season. - Sharon

    ReplyDelete
  4. Perfect uses of this fabric! Looks so professional and cool. Well done.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Coordinating separates were definitely a great use of the fabric. Super cute pieces - so perfect for the sunny & hot Florida lifestyle! Great pieces, great fit, great fabric , great seamstress!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for leaving a comment! All comments are reviewed before posting to help us eliminate spam. Your comment will be posted within 24 hours.

Popular Posts You Might Like

Made By A Fabricista: Valentine’s Day Cozy Lounge Set

What comes first: the pattern or the fabric? How do you make your sewing plans? Throughout the month of January, my social media feeds were flooded by fabulous sewists sharing sewing resolutions and goals, and designing thoughtful plans for their 2025 makes.  While I am a big planner in my day-to-day life, when it comes to my creative hobby, I am much more spontaneous. I find that fabric design and texture often inspires me most so I typically look for fabulous prints or bold colors and let the fabric tell me what it wants to become. As I turned my attention to my first-ever (!) Fabricista make, I wanted something to get my creative juices flowing. One evening, Fabric Mart shared an Instagram story that highlighted their Dusty Mauve Sweatshirt Fleece . It had a nice stretch, was fleece-backed, and was a muted baby pink that spoke to me. It was soft and feminine, perfect for a cozy day or night by the fire. I immediately knew I wanted to make a cute pair of sweatpants for a fun Vale...

Made by a Fabricista: Fun Fabrics

  I am so happy to still be a part of the Fabricista Blogger Team. I joined in the middle of the pandemic and have really enjoyed myself as a blogger.  Fabric Mart has truly been my go to place for shopping for fabulous fabrics that reflect my style.  I love that I get to shop deadstock fabric that will help give fabrics additional lifespan and fabric is typically limited quantities so you will be part of the few with that fabric.  As someone who is big on individuality this is such a plus for me.   Can we also talk about the great sales that Fabric Mart runs?  I literally stalk the site daily to find new fabrics and catch the featured sales.  During one of my daily visits to the site I came across this gorgeous  corduroy fabric  with a unique animal print.  At the time I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to make with it but I just knew I had to use this for my next featured make.  I was also able to get matching thread, another...

Made By A Fabricista: Sewing + Running

It’s not every day that I get to mix two of my favorite hobbies. Especially when one hobby is sewing and the other is running. You can’t sew and run at the same time, but, you can go running in something that you sewed! With this realization, I embarked on my first hobby-merging adventure.  We’ve had some frigid temperatures in Pennsylvania this winter. Since I’m an outside, stroller-pushing runner, I bundle up my son and myself before I hit the road. The temperature feels 20 degrees warmer for outside runners than the outside air. For the children being pushed in the stroller though, it feels about 20 degrees colder.  With these differences in temperature for each of us, layering is the only thing that ensures that we both stay perfectly warm. My running wardrobe has been lacking a warm top layer. My son’s wardrobe would also benefit from having another warm layer, so I knew pullovers were what I should make.  Inspired by a name-brand ¼ button-down fleece pullover I saw,...