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.