Fabric Mart Fabricistas

This post is the start of my third year as a collaborator in this blog! And I still get some stage fright every time I choose a project, cut into the fabric, stitch, and unstitch… But I am grateful - and still, a little bit shocked - to be part of such a creative cohort of Fabricistas with much more experienced sewists than me! This project reminded me of what a great opportunity this is to grow and keep learning. Like all sewists, I have known Liberty of London fabrics for years. These luxury and designer fabrics are classic! But their hefty price tag and refined aura were too intimidating for me to use them. Nevertheless, on a Sunday morning in January, a Liberty of London sale on Fabric Mart made me dare to push my boundaries. I could have chosen one of the iconic floral prints the brand is known for, but this bold and colorful pattern instantly caught my eye. Its design combines all kinds of abstract leaves, stripes, and warm, popping colors. It is an “Autumn Fall” design, but I s...

Spring is finally here! Yay! Have you had a chance to smell the fresh blooming flowers yet? I encourage you to go outside and see, feel, and touch the beautiful blooming flowers, if you live in an area where you can do so.I find this to be calming, and I feel inspired to get back into my sewing room and make pretty garments.  Hello friends! My name is Tea and this is my first post as a Fabric Mart Fabricista. Today I’ll be sharing my recent experience sewing the Lenox Shirtdress by Cashmerette that I made with this gorgeous Silk Cotton purple fabric that was sponsored by Fabric Mart.  Fabric Choice I chose this beautiful purple fabric because it is perfect for spring time, and it reminds me of lavender fields, which I love!  Also, I am a huge fan of cotton apparel fabrics. So when I saw this beautiful fabric on the Fabric Mart website I was instantly taken by surprise, and immediately thought of making a shirtdress. This fabric is a 55” wide medium weight non-stretch wov...

I'd be willing to generalize that it's been a rough month for most of us, especially black people in America. All of our lives were already disrupted by COVID-19 and the threat of murder hornets loomed then the murder of George Floyd (closely following the murders of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery) brought police brutality and this country's history of race relations to the forefront. I'd be lying if I said that all of this didn't have an effect on my sewjo. Sewing is usually something that I can enjoy and use to bring me up when I'm down, but honestly I was so overwhelmed with a variety of emotion that I had to take break from sewing for a few weeks. Several (non-poc) sewists reached out to me during this time and I truly appreciated it. Almost all wanted to let me know that they acknowledged and agreed with IG posts and stories I'd shared ( @TipStitched ). Some just wanted to see if I was ok considering " everything that was going on ". ...

I love shirt dresses! My pattern collection reflects this (I may or may not have eight shirt dress patterns) but somehow my closet does not. I have just two DIY shirt dresses (Mimi G's Katie dress and Simplicity 8546 ) and maybe two RTW versions. So it's high time that I added some to my wardrobe. This polyester blouse weight twill by Milly has the perfect weight and drape for a relaxed shirt dress. If you prefer a more structured look, stick to a cotton shirting or light weight sateen. I loved this fabric and print so much that I grabbed both colorways. Unfortunately this fabric is sold out, but you can browse other shirtings and blouse weight fabrics here . This fabric has a somewhat slinky feel, but isn't truly slippery. There's also a slight sheen without being shiny like a satin. It was easy to cut and sew, but I did get a few snags when pinning so make sure you use sharp pins and a fresh machine needle. I serged my pieces before assembling the patt...

It's summertime here in Illinois!  Even though I love to be outside and spend time in my garden, I also am quite concerned about preventing sun damage to my skin and covering up as much as is reasonably comfortable.  For that reason, I decided to make some shirtdresses that would be lightweight, breezy, yet, tightly woven fabric that would offer some degree of SPF protection, and cover at least my upper arms and shoulders.  In the photo on the left, it looks like I'm wearing a camisole- I'm not, that's just the line where the sun protection from my hat ends-guess I need to button up a little further!  The two fabrics that I used just sold out, so maybe you even bought some! But if not, Fabric Mart has a great selection of other shirtings in stock.

I love the style of shirtdresses, but I very rarely wear them. For one they are usually made with cotton fabric and I hate to iron (which is one of the reasons I love to sew with knits). Also since I've started sewing they've just seemed like to much work to make...collars, cuffs, buttons and buttonholes. Sigh.                                  But after I saw another sewists version of S8546 I knew I wanted to sew View B for myself for this months blog post! Fabric Mart always has a great selection of shirting, so much so that I ended up grabbing two prints, this black and white vertical stripe and a large scale blue plaid. I debated the vertical stripes because well it's a bold choice. I knew it would either be fashionably chic piece or a epic fail. I mean b&w vertical stripes scream umpire or worse...Beetle Juice, eck! Good or bad I decided to go for it though I'm still not ...

Hi All- I hope you are well.  For this month's post, I decided to make something out of linen.  When I saw this shade of green linen online, I thought it would be a perfect choice for the summer. I must admit that I wasn't 100% confident with my choice of fabric, because I was super concerned about the wrinkle factor and how my ultimate garment would look.  I wanted to do a really classic button down dress and thought McCall's M7623 , View A would accomplish the look I had in mind. Prior to cutting my fabric, I read an article on Craftsy related to how to pre-treat your fabric. For linen, it said to wash the fabric and finished garment in hot water and dry it in a hot dryer.  It said that it would soften the garment up.  After washing the fabric, I did notice that it softened up a lot and completely lost the stiff feeling.  I have a habit of emptying out the lint trap in my dryer very often and had done so prior to placing my fabric in.  Aft...

This is not my first rodeo of making a themed dress for an auction.  I have now sewn up four dresses specifically for my school's annual auctions.   Last year I wrote up a post for this blog on my "Greek" dress, which you can find here, if you are interested. I heard about this year's theme (BBQ, Boots, and Bidding) super early, so I have known what I was going to make for a long time.  I contacted Fabric Mart a while back very excited that I knew EXACTLY what I needed to do for my April make.  I asked if they had any denim that I could use for creating an Alder shirt dress, and while they had the Grainline Alder pattern in stock ( they don't right now, but hopefully it will come back in stock soon! ), they didn't really have much denim, and the yardage that was available was pretty heavy and inappropriate for a dress. I was sent some images of shirting and chambray yardage that was not currently on the website, and I yelped with happiness when I saw...