June 1, 2024
Happy Saturday,
Hope you are having a great week. This past week, we traveled to PA and was able to see family and friends. We visited Lancaster watched Daniel at the Sight & Sound and visited about five fabric stores. My favorite fabric store was Fabric Mart. I had to practice some self-control at these stores because we flew up instead of driving. Here is the front of their building from a photo found online.
The store is very large with so many choices for apparel fabrics. It is actually hard not to fill your car up with all the fabric you can find.
Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to provide tips on how to sew a straight skirt. Yes, you have the pattern instructions. My goal is to keep you from making the same mistakes that I made. Some of the issues that I had was the skirt did not fit. Or worse, the fabric crinkles so much when coming out of the dryer that it takes too much time to iron.
Here are several of my tips before you even cut out the pattern. First avoid 100% cotton unless you love ironing. These fabrics wrinkle so much, and you will need to spend a lot of time ironing the skirt. I would go for the bottom weight fabrics at Joann’s. Usually there is a mixture of cotton and polyester so this will reduce your ironing time.
Once the fabric is purchased, wash it. Yes, even before cutting it out. This will cut down on it shrinking after you have made the skirt. When deciding on the size of the skirt, do not use your retail size. Measure your hips and waist and follow the size. Yes, it is normal that you will be two to three sizes above your normal size at the store.
I hope these tips work for you. Let me know if you have any tips that can be beneficial.
Happy Sewing,
Valerie
The Saturday Seamstress 