How to Use Print Fabric When You Actually Prefer Solids

By the time I'd organized my sewing closets, I discovered that I own a lot of print fabric. This was strange - because I've always preferred working with solids, I thought most of my stash would be solids. Instead, about half of it is patterned. Half!!!

So I started to analyze what I actually did with those print fabrics in my sewing. And I found that

• if I count polka dots, gingham and stripes as "print", then why yes, I do use a lot of print fabrics.
• I hardly ever coordinate different print (motif type) fabrics together in the same thing I'm sewing. One print fabric is already visually overwhelming for me, and to have two or three, especially when they aren't pre-coordinated by qualified fabric designers, would just about ruin the project.
• there's funky prints and then there's funky* prints. I own both kinds. Eek.

* as in, "Eeeeeeew, that is some funky-smelling cheese!"

Now, I'm probably in the minority in the crafting world where designer prints sell products and designers themselves are like royalty. Most of you already happily use lots of print fabric, and have absolutely no problems buying more. But for the handful of folks out there like me, here are one dozen ways in which I use print fabric when I don't want it to be the main event.

1 Quilting

An easy one for those of you who quilt - this is why quilting cotton exists in the first place. I don't quilt, but occasionally I need to sew a um... wall-hanging made of small elements. In such cases, I'd happily use print fabrics, but on a background that's solid. 

Erm... and since that's the sum total of the "quilting" I've done, let's move on, shall we?


2 Lining

This is probably the main way I use print fabric in large amounts, especially in bags and other receptacles. The print fabric is almost invisible to passers-by because it is hidden, but the owner gets to see it a little bit when actually using the bag. Feels funky without actually looking it. Score.

I also do sneak this into garments that I want to leave externally plain/solid. Here is the waistband of a denim skirt, lined with print on the inside.



I've also used them for other facings - on bodices and pockets - when the external fabric is solid.

3 Alternating with solids in bands

I use this easy design a lot: I alternate solids with prints in bands in many of the things I sew - bags, like the owl bucket:

tiered skirts:

tiered nightdresses:

4 Piping

Piping is a lot of fun to use because you can make your own to coordinate or contrast with the main fabric. And because it is stiff, it holds the shape of whatever you pipe around.

I often let myself go a bit with receptacles - pencil cases, 

and bases of pouches and bags.

Occasionally I use piping in garment-sewing, particularly for contrast:

5 Edging

Edging is like piping, but flat. Similar to piping, whenever I want a project to be primarily solid/plain, but still want a bit of print visible, I edge it. Easy things to edge are 

pockets

waistbands

and faced hems. Apologies- I know this one is the reverse of what I'm trying to say because the edging is solid white and the hem and main body are both print. Imagine this the other way around, OK?

6 Binding

Wherever you have an opening, you can use binding. Like rims of bags (look: there's matching piping on the base, too!)

tops/yokes of pockets:

and on waistbands and more pockets:



If you are binding a curved edge, cut your binding strips on the bias of the fabric because they hug curves better. But they use a bigger area of fabric this way. If you are binding a straight edge, you can cut the strips along the regular cross-grain of the fabric and save fabric.


7 Trim
I often use narrow strips of print fabric for solid straps so they coordinate with the rest of the project:

If the rest of the project is primarily solid, I have also made the entire strap out of print fabric, with solid piping along the edges. 

8 Pockets

are another way to use print fabric in largish amounts. This is a bag that features a large panel print - it became a natural pocket.

Here are some funky pockets on solid backgrounds:

9 Applique
This is a very easy way to embellish one element of a project so it coordinates with the rest of the project. I once made an apron out of denim that had a sea creature print. I fortuitously also had a fabric with large fish motifs, which I cut out and satin-stitched onto a solid pocket:

As part of the completed project, the little applique coordinated the whole thing:

Sometimes I just cut out a more geometric outline around the motif and top-stitch the whole thing on. 

Applique is also very useful for patching holes in garments, so the next time you have rips in the knees of your kids' jeans, and a large stash of print fabric you can't stand the sight of, you'll know what to do.

10 Interpret
Sometimes I want to coordinate a solid with a print by showcasing a motif but I am not lucky enough to have the actual motifs (like that fish example above). Suppose I liked this tiny bird on the print fabric that I was using as lining, and wanted to feature it on the (solid) exterior of the project,

I might do an applique like this:

to make a coordinated final product.

11 Frame

Literally -

in which case you could enjoy it without having to sew it! Yay.

What- you say that's cheating? 

Spoilsports. Fine - we'll sew it - see:

12 Frame - Reverse Applique
Enter reverse applique. It is like framing the print fabric

and it can be done in simple geometric shapes like the oval above, or more interesting outline-hugging ones like this:

this

and this. 

Often, reverse applique is done on fabric that doesn't fray, like felt or knit, so you can cut out windows and simply lay them over the print you want to display. But this can also be done in wovens - which do fray - if you face the openings. Here's how:


Step 1

Lay something transparent/translucent over the motif and trace around it, leaving a border. This will be the size of the "window". I used a plastic bag that was lying around.

Step 2

Cut around the outline you traced. This is your pattern for the window.

Flip it over so it is now in its mirror image, lay it in position on the wrong side of the outer fabric, and trace around it.

Step 3

Find a piece of lightweight, coordinating fabric that is a little bigger than your window. This is your facing piece.

Step 4

Lay the facing piece on the right side of the fabric, directly under your traced outline. Using a short stitch length (better for corners and pointy bits) and sew directly over your traced outline, through both layers. If you remember the free-floating inset pocket tutorial from last year, it's the same thing.

This is the back (i.e. the right side of the fabric):

Step 5

Cut out the window, leaving a seam allowance. Snip this seam allowance carefully, paying attention to the corners and pointy bits.

Step 6

Turn the facing out to the wrong side of the fabric, through the window hole you cut out.

Press and baste (I used a long basting stitch on the sewing machine) around the window to hold the facing in place. Try your best to keep the facing fabric from rolling forward and peeking out. Do not baste too close to the actual opening, to leave room for your hand-sewn embroidery stitches.

Step 7

Cut out your motif, remembering to leave enough allowance all around it for sewing. If it is very thin (i.e. quilting cotton), reinforce it with interfacing on its wrong side. I used a fusible interfacing. Position it behind the window and either baste it in place or use some kind of heat-and-bond applique aid, if you need to.

Step 8

Stitch around the entire outline to attach the motif fabric to the outer fabric. I used contrasting-colored embroidery floss and did a running stitch by hand. Depending on the look you want to achieve, you might use up to all six strands. 

Step 9

Remove the basting stitches. All done!

And here is how it looks as part of the finished project.

So there you are: 12 reasons to continue buying print fabric without actually having to go blind using it in a project. Less is more with print! 

Buckets from 2008's Leftovers

Two years ago I made a lot of fabric buckets. I cut out so many pieces and so quickly lost interest that they sat in my WIPs tubs till now. I was in a Get Off Your Behind And Finish Your Old Stuff Already phase in January, so I took them out to try and sew them up.

Without the stitched art, they weren't very interesting, so I thought I'd give them some edginess with reverse applique

 

but those fabrics!!!!!!!! I should've left them in 2008.

So I kept the reverse applique, traded the old fabric for new,



 and threw in a bit of regular applique for variety.

Better.

Finished off with something for the kids:

And emptied out that WIP tub.

Feels good to finish something, even if it had to be overhauled, two years later.

P.S. Reverse applique tutorial coming up. This post was written a whole month ago along with quite a few others, so I'm just catching up with the backlog and hitting "publish" one by one. 

Buy This Book

I am very excited - I think I have finally found the kind of drafting book that I would wholeheartedly recommend to everyone:

It came from the library! Earlier this week, on a whim, I thought I'd check out what the library had to offer by way of dressmaking resources. I knew they didn't have all the modern drafting books that were on amazon or Barnes and Noble, and certainly none of the make-your-own-pattern type coffee-table books that are very popular on blogs nowadays. But that was fine, because I was looking for vintagey old-fashioned dressmaking textbooks - the sort from before Photoshop, and (preferably) written by someone European/ Commonwealthy. I reserved a few random titles, and checked them out today.

I think you will like this book, especially if you are a novice drafter. I like this book. Let me tell you why:

• It isn't huge. It isn't one of those mega-volumes that people rave about because it is value-for-money comprehensive. This has everything you need, in concise little chapters, without the fancy terminology. Much as it is nice to have an encyclopedia of drafting adaptations on everything you could possibly want to (and not) wear, that's sometimes overwhelming for beginning drafters. It's more useful to have more attention paid to the basics, if you are a beginner. Besides, you can buy lots of books that teach you how to adapt patterns, but not a whole lot that teach you to draft from measurements. This one does that. 
• The diagrams are hand-drawn, and very good. I love that! 
• She starts with a SLOPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Although she calls it the Foundation Block, which is what I'd always called it before coming to the US. Something familiar at last!! Immediately I felt right at home. 

Here's an interesting point, albeit trivial to most of you: all the horizontal reference points are measured and plotted downwards (see the vertical arrows in the diagram above) from the shoulder line (for the upper block) or waistline (for the lower block). This was how I learned to draft, although some other resources do a combination of upwards and downwards plotting. If you remember, I used this latter method to teach you to draft the child's sloper, because I thought it was easier to visualize. I still like the everything-downwards way because it uses one main reference line for the upper block, which makes more sense in principle. 

• This is the collection of "notes" from about 40 years of teaching this stuff. It's a curriculum! And it reads like she's right there in the classroom, teaching it to real humans -see point 1.
• Stuff is broken down into steps: even measurement points for the entire block/sloper are broken up into several diagrams. 
• She doesn't tell long stories about Whys and Hows the way I do, but she explains stuff so you understand why you're doing whatever it is you're doing.

Here's an example of the Princess Line/Princess Seam construction:

Unfortunately, this was published in 1992 and is only available on amazon/Barnes and Noble in used copies. Read the reviews yourself here. No matter - I liked it so much that I went on ebay straightaway and bought one right off a London dealer, and paid the international shipping. Cost me US$26, which was a steal. 

If you're a beginner drafter, you will like this book. It is the best book for beginner drafters that I've seen so far. Even if you're intermediate or advanced, I still say this is a great book for good, strong basics. I should point out that it's in metric, which might be inconvenient to some of you. I grew up drafting in metric, even though I do it in inches now, so it didn't occur to me as being odd, until one of the reviewers mentioned it. 

Art Museum

The girls and I made an art museum today. 

It wasn't as hard work as it sounds! 

First, we made a lot of frames from colored construction paper and stuck white paper behind them. We used thick white sketchbook-type paper for this but white construction paper is great, too. I let the girls use my fancy scissors, and they made arty borders. 

We made a few frames with black canvases, for crayons and pastels.

Then we set out some art materials - crayon rocks, water-soluble crayons and watercolor pencils and cut bits of paper for collages.

And the girls made their art pieces while I fancied up some of the frames with markers.

Kate was deliriously happy to be allowed to cut up paper with all the pairs of scissors.

And then we had a brief lunch intermission. Look - food and art supplies on the same table. Sometimes we relax the rules! 

I'll share an interesting twist to this activity - none of the girls actually knew what an art museum was like! Emily went to one as a baby but she didn't remember, of course. And the girls have seen museums on TV, but that was it. 

So we talked about it. We talked about what museums were, and the kinds there were. We talked about curators, and brochures, and how large and small the exhibits were. We talked about dinosaurs and mobiles and spaceships and interactive machines, and weapons of war and history and produce and sculpture gardens and vintage Barbies and old instruments. And art.

Then I remembered this series of magazines I bought years ago in Singapore:

This was during my I Am An Uncultured Buffoon And Need To Embrace The Fine Arts phase that sometimes strikes post-college young people. I diligently collected as many of these magazines as I could, and then never read beyond the first or second issue. I saved them though, because they were like a Fine Art For Dummies subscription, see -

and I suspected they would come in handy someday. 

Good old culture! I am no more informed today than I was back then, but it was fun to just look at the pictures with the kids, and marvel at the different styles. Emily loved Seurat's pointillism - "it's just dots!" 

Then we pulled up some photos of Emily's infant-trip to the museum and tried to spot some of the paintings in the magazines. 

This is a sample of some of the pieces the girls did:

Emily's collage- "Sunset":

"Rainbow" by Emily (blue frame) and by Jenna (purple frame):

Still life: disparate fruit sans bowl by Jenna

"Trying To Be A Rainbow" by Kate

We've done art like this many times before, but never within frames. The frames made everything fancy and important and the girls even signed their names in the corners like they'd seen in real paintings.

Emily suggested more ideas for our museum - sculpture like this one, set on pillows on pedestals

and easels with artists at work. She initially thought that museums were full of the actual artists painting their masterpieces for visitors to watch, after which they would sell them. So we talked about most of the artists being dead, and student painters sometimes copying their work in the musuems as part of their homework.

Then we took photos of the girls' work, and made a museum brochure*:

The girls talked about their paintings and we included some of their comments.

And finally, we stuck the paintings on the walls. When Dad came home, we invited him to our museum, presented him the brochure and gave him the grand tour. No photos of the actual museum because the lighting was so poor anyway. And also because the final product was just pictures on a wall and a lone cardboard structure in the middle of the room - very much like any craft scenario in our house on any day of the week. But the process was what most engaged the kids today - from making their own frames to fleshing out the concept of museum to preparing their work for presentation to "the public" (i.e. Dad). It's a pity not all our crafts work out this way - I sure wish they did.  

* Because I know you might ask, our brochure was made with Pages, the Mac equivalent of Word-plus-some-Front-Page-stuff. It has templates that we can modify and add photos to.