Even though it’s a cold and blustery day in Brooklyn today, we are celebrating spring in the studio with the arrival of the new Lisette fabric collection. I made up the Market Dress in a beautiful sheer cotton lawn featuring an Indian-inspired pattern with red, pinks, and oranges. The slightly faded colors make it look like a vintage Indian dress I picked up on my travels. I decided to skip the ruffle on the sleeves and just do a narrow sleeve hem instead. Since it’s cold outside, I paired the dress with skinny jeans, red pumps, and a sari-inspired scarf.
I used a pendant made of hammered metal and some beads to embellish the placket instead of buttons in keeping with the ethnic inspiration. The placket is a great place to add your own personal style to the pattern. You could feature machine or hand embroidery, bead embroidery, vintage buttons, or a fabulous brooch. The possibilities are endless!
I can’t wait to see what you make with the new spring fabric collection!
It’s feeling very spring-like in New York this week, in more ways than one.
Not only has it been warm outside. I’ve also just spent the last few days listening to spring trend forecasting presentations, and the one theme that’s resonated through every presentation has been the prevalence of white in color palettes: white with pastels, white with pure and vibrant sorbet shades, white with cool colors, and white with warm colors.
I found myself nodding and nodding inside while I listened, since it’s exactly what you’ll be seeing from us this season. And it’s starting to show up at JoAnn stores now!
I was inspired by lots of color for this collection. The palette is split into two separate palettes, one with warm colors like pink, orange, and yellow and the other with cool colors like blue, green, and turquoise.
This season we’ve selected lots of textures, too: smooth and soft sateen, loads of glorious floaty and lightweight sheer lawn (sheer and light and floaty and voluminous is another theme for the season!), crisp fresh poplin, and the rich texture of drapey and luxurious twill. These fabrics and prints are all about textures, both for the eye and the hand.
The prints in this collection are inspired by Lisette’s usual nomadic ways. She found inspiration in antique cloisonne in China, block prints and ikats in India, and fresh geometric prints in Scandinavia. The prints are designed to work together, since fashion trends are all about mixing prints these days.
I’m usually a cool color person, but lately I’ve also been gravitating toward the warm colors. Pink and yellow are really capturing my imagination (and are making their way into my wardrobe) for the first time in quite a while! I’ll be curious to see which colors and prints you like best. You can see the entire fabric collection here and at Jo-Ann stores across the United States.
Happy spring!
Here is yet another version of the Itinerary Dress, this time as a blouse. I used a heavy silk I found at Mood, which I think is a double-faced silk. I love the weight and drape of the fabric, and it was surprising easy to work with.
I think I’ve almost reached the end of my obsession with this pattern, but I’m still contemplating making one more dress from this patern in yellow after being inspired by these two photos.
I love the start of a new year because I’m a big fan of making resolutions. During the first week of January everything seems possible because I have a whole year to accomplish something. In addition to making general resolutions (i.e., spend more time at the gym), I also make sewing resolutions as a way to motivate myself to gain new skills and broaden my sewing repertoire.
In past years my sewing resolutions have included making all my clothes for the entire year and not buying any new clothes (I did it!), and sewing down my fabric stash before buying more fabric (still working on that one). For 2012 I have three sewing resolutions:
1.Sew the perfect pair of pants – This is the year that I’m going to get over my pant fitting phobia and make an awesome pair of pants. The Portfolio pant pattern is already on my list.
2.Sew from my collection of vintage patterns – A couple years ago I inherited my grandmother’s extensive vintage pattern collection that includes patterns from the 1940’s to the 1980’s. The patterns will require some fitting alterations to work for me so I always put off making them, but this is the year I pull them out and sew a few of them up in contemporary fabrics. It will be a great way to hone my pattern alteration skills. I can’t wait to make this Pauline Trigere pattern for spring.
3. Make a quilt – I’ve always been primarily an apparel sewer but this year I’m going to break out of my comfort zone and make a full-size modern quilt. It will be a great way to use up my fabric stash and learn some new techniques. This quilt by Denyse Schmidt is exactly the inspiration I need to get motivated!
Whew! Okay that’s pretty ambitious, but I have a whole year, right! What are your sewing goals for 2012? Let us know in the comments. This is the year to learn something new and get creative!
Our friend Jeanne is back again this week with another great Itinerary Dress. Can you tell we’re really loving the versatility of this pattern lately?
Here’s what Jeanne has to say:
“My work wardrobe consists of way too many garments in various shades of gray and black. In attempt to add bold splashes of color to my fall and winter wardrobe, I used a fun drop-cloth printed, cotton fabric when I made this Itinerary Dress. I styled it with a gray bell-sleeved cardigan, a black leather saddle belt, black and gray patterned tights, and black boots. This Itinerary Dress has proven to be a bold, yet versatile, addition to my wardrobe. Now that the colder weather has finally hit, I’ll be wearing this dress with leggings for a bit of extra warmth.”
Have a wonderful holiday!
I often go through my pattern collection to see how I can remake my favorite patterns in different seasonal fabrics. And while making fabric substitutions outside of the recommended fabrics on a pattern can sometimes be tricky, they can be very successful as long as you follow a few simple guidelines.
Take the Passport Jacket for example. The recommended fabrics for this versatile spring jacket pattern include light- to medium- weight fabrics such as cottons, linens, poplin, twill, silks, rayons, and sateens. But you could easily turn this into your favorite fall or winter jacket by using heavier fabrics with similar drape. Here are a couple of fabric substitution ideas to give this jacket a winter makeover:
Go casual in denim: Light- to medium-weight denims would be perfect for this jacket. You could get creative with contrast topstitching, metal buttons or hardware, and use a fun print for the front facings.
Get sophisticated with wool: Try a light- to medium-weight wool to make this your favorite go-to jacket for work. Play with wool solids, tweeds, or pinstripes for a smart look.
Add holiday sparkle with silk taffeta or dupioni silk: These dressy fabrics would give you a great jacket cover-up for a holiday dress. Try using an elegant brooch in place of the button closure.
Make it luxurious in Ultrasuede: This jacket would look stunning in faux suede and feel great to the touch. If you have the right tools, sewing with faux suede is easy. A roller, even-feed, or Teflon machine foot will help the fabric feed easily through your machine and super-fine pins, quilting clips, or basting tape will help you avoid unsightly pin marks.
With any fabric substitutions, always make sure you have the right machine needle and thread for your fabric, and always sew a test swatch so you can adjust your stitch length and tension to your fabric.
We would love to know how you would winterize the Passport Jacket. Show us your style in the Lisette Flickr group or tell us your ideas in the comments.
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