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Hello! My name is Amy I am one of the buyers for Harts Fabric. I was so excited when I was asked to do a guest blog post on fabric inspiration for the Colette 2.0 Peony Sew-a-long . First of all, I must say I just adore Colette Patterns and I absolutely love fabric. I love all the colors, prints and textures. I just love touching all the different types of fabric and I always hand pick and touch each and every fabric we bring in the store. The most favorite part of my job is foraging through fabric warehouses picking out one-of-a-kind fashion fabrics.
Fashion Fabrics for the home sewist has been gaining a lot of popularity ever since Project Runway came out. We do our best to bring in high quality fashion forward fabrics that are unique and hard to find. Here are some of my personal favorite fabrics in the store. I tried to pick a variety of different looks from funky to casual work and then fancy and fabulous.
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| This cute deer fabric reminds me of our Rochelle :) |
Who doesn’t love Echino fabric?! This magenta hipster deer with sunglasses print is from their latest collection. For the cummerbund I went with a solid black linen/cotton blend, it matches the weight of the Echino print perfectly, which is also a linen/cotton blend. I would totally wear this to work! It is so fun, funky and vibrant!
Both of these fabrics are from a new favorite company called Dear Stella. This company has so many fun prints it was hard to narrow it down to two. I went with the most popular Peacock feather print and paired it with a Navy Ikat. I could see the Peony dress made with Ikat as dress and a Peacock belt or vice-versa would look great too.
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| I see our California Girl, Erin, wearing these! |
Both of these beautiful fabrics are what is called a Double Gauze fabric. Double Gauze is created by taking two layers of gauze fabric and joining them with tiny invisible stitches. This technique originated in Japan and it is where we import all our Double gauze fabric from. This fabric gives you a light airy look of gauze without the transparency. No need to line the fabric or wear a slip. These fabrics are from Nani Iro’s latest collection. I love how large the Floral Aqua print is and it would make a bold bright dress that drapes nicely. For the belt I chose a multi-colored dotty fabric that adds just a touch of sweetness.
I love the idea of making a fun food dress. I saw a couple dresses on ModCloth awhile back made with food and thought it was so kitschy and cute. We have so many fun food fabrics at the store it was hard to choose. I just love the polka dots and Ice Cream combo, it makes me so happy! The polka dots almost resemble sprinkles and match perfectly with the Ice-cream colors. I would make the main dress out of the Ice-cream cones and make the belt out of the multi polka-dot. Got a fun Ice-cream social to go to? Well this is your dress!
I picked out these two fabrics for all the classy ladies. Houndstooth is timeless and so is black and white. This would make an elegant dress that you could wear to all those holiday parties coming up. The Houndstooth is 100% cotton and woven, which makes for a nice texture. The black fabric for the belt is a cotton/silk blend and has a nice shine.
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| Pure fabric decadence! I love this combination! |
I saved the most fancy for last. I was inspired by the recent blog post on Kate Middleton’s dress that she wore to the South East Asian Tour. I immediately searched the store for fabrics to re-create her look. I laid these two fabrics out on the cutting table to layer and take photo for the blog and I literally had a flock of customers eyeing-up the fabrics. The Aqua blue is a cotton/silk blend that is easy to work with and sew. It has a nice weight and is not to slippery to sew like other silks. You can even machine wash/dry it! The lace is finished with a scalloped selvedge and thought it would make a beautiful hem on a dress without having to actually sew the hem. I Love it when the fabric makes the sewing easier, bonus!
I hope everyone is inspired to make a Peony dress that fits their own unique personality and style. Whether you are a classy lady or a funky fashionista I believe when you sew your own clothing it is like wearing your own personal artwork that says a lot about who you are. Happy sewing!
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The Peony project schedule is as follows:
Week of October 1st: Sew-Along Kick-Off (Muslins, measurements, etc)
Week of October 8th: Fabulous Fit
Week of October 15th: It's All About Fabric!
Weeks of October 22nd - 31st: Be Our Guest
Week of November 5th: Peony Parade - be sure to upload your finished dress into the sew-along Flickr group!
2 comments:
How fun! Love all of these options!
Double gauze - how I long to get my hands on some of that!!
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