The Winning Design

I've always loved contests. I remember entering a poster contest in grade school where I drew the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. I don't remember what the contest was for, but I remember winning! When I heard about a fabric design contest for the American Sewing Guild, I knew I would be entering. I found out in March that my design was chosen. I decided it would be fun to create three companion prints to go with the winning design. The dress above is one of the companion prints. 

The American Sewing Guild is a fabulous organization dedicated to sewing (of course!) with chapters throughout the United States. I just returned from their annual convention, this year held in Orlando, where I took great classes and enjoyed meeting sewists from across the US. 

You can find this pattern and the other designs at mysewingdesigns.com. Search for American Sewing Guild to find all the designs. 

This design is printed on their Modern Jersey fabric - a 4-way stretch with a silky finish. I combined two McCall's patterns - #7240 for the neckline and sleeves and #6957 for the bottom portion. This fabric was easy to sew but did require interfacing the edges of all the hems to avoid tunneling on my coverstitch machine. (I just learned at conference that this practice is a good idea on any knit hem.)

Here are the designs in the ASG collection. The lettered design features the names of all kinds of fabrics - brocade, denim, cashmere, melton, etc. I hand-lettered all the names with a brush before arranging them in this pattern. The floral print is the same design I used to create an extra large stencil that I painted on my entry wall. I like the nod to a formal design with a slightly quirky, modern twist. 

Indigo Windowpane Tunic

In an earlier post, I showed the fabric I dyed last year in an indigo-dyeing class taught by Ruth Chandler of the Thread Lab in Colorado Springs. This rayon fabric from Dharma Trading Company was one of my favorites from that day. It's so breezy and comfortable, and I love the styling on the sleeves.

The bodice and skirt are simple rectangle shapes which worked well for the folded shibori technique I used when dyeing the pieces. The ombre effect happens as some of the fabric is less exposed to the indigo dye when it is folded up. I used office alligator clips to secure 4" boards to the outsides of the folded squares. The sleeves came from McCalls 6793. I love the length and the shape of them.

I couldn't resist showing off my newly-painted and organized closet. We chose bright white for the walls and put LED bulbs in the fixtures. Not shown are two large shelves for all my SHOES! I feel like I'm walking into a department store every time I go in it. It makes me happy.

XOXO Flirty Dress

I'm having such fun designing fabric and having it printed. This is the first design I've created on my new iPad!! My sweet hubby decided I needed cheering up after getting my braces a few weeks ago, and I've been having such fun playing around on it. This new design can be found on myfabricdesigns.com if you search for Wordsworth.

These are the different colorways available. I printed the design on the Modern Jersey fabric (which is only 52" wide), a super-stretchy polyester knit. I added 1/2" interfacing anywhere I needed to topstitch with my regular machine or the coverstitch machine to prevent the fabric channeling between the two lines of stitching. I think I prefer their Organic Cotton Knit but this fabric performs well in this pattern. 

The pattern is Vogue 9109 which is a tunic pattern I made longer for a dress. I was able to make this dress from just one yard of fabric in size 12. I used 2" strips of fabric, folded in half for the binding at the neck and armhole edges. 

Because this pattern doesn't have a back seam for shaping, the resulting dress is a little boxy in back but it's really comfortable and still form-fitting enough to be flattering. 

I'm thinking I can wear this in the fall as a transition piece with black tights and a cardi, but for now it's perfect for breezy summer days.