Hello, hello! The poor old blog has been totally neglected of late…I’m back to make a change to that today and have some beautiful fabric to share with you!
Today I am participating in the Maai Design “See You At Six” Blog Tour. A couple of months ago I received an email from Maaike (owner of Maai Design) letting me know about an amazing new European fabric that she would be adding to the store soon. Now, to be honest, I’m a sucker for pretty much any European fabric! It always promises top quality and unique prints but up until now I have only really sewn with European knits. I didn’t hesitate in joining in the blog tour fun because I knew the fabric would be awesome AND I loved the new range by See You At Six. Maai Designs stocks 12 gorgeous prints in this unique 100% cotton viscose/rayon fabric – the best part is that they are all suited to sewing garments for the GROWN UPS! I do get sucked in by cutesy prints, my fabric stash is full of them and I need to start shopping more for fabric that I will wear myself. The entire See You At Six range fits this brief perfectly.
On receiving the fabric, I was 100% impressed with the quality. It has the most incredible drape and is super soft to feel with a nice, tight weave, producing a fabric that is perfect for sewing tops, skirts and dresses for women (and kids…but I personally want to keep this one all to myself!) I did pre-wash and tumble dry my fabric as instructed on the website to account for the small shrinkage factor. I’m not great at pre-washing woven fabrics, but am always happy when I do it and then dry in the dryer because I know the finished garment can be thrown into the dryer without having to worry about shrinkage in the future.
For the blog tour I choose to make myself a couple of tops using the Drops in Black & White and Flowers Blue fabrics. I love how each of these prints are busy enough to keep them interesting but subtle enough to wear without feeling like you are drawing too much attention to yourself (did I just totally contradict myself there, or what?!) I thought that I would take the opportunity to sew something different for myself and had a flick through my not-yet-used pattern stash. After a bit of thought I decided to use the Grainline Scout Tee as my base pattern. This pattern has been around forever but it wasn’t until just recently that I decided I liked it…and now that I have made a couple I have decided that I love it!! It is a super speedy sew AND is really easy and flattering to wear.
I made the black tee first, sewing a size 6 and using the pattern without any modifications. Completely happy with the results, but then I remembered seeing a few peplum variations of the tee around and knew that the See You At Six fabric with amazing drape would work perfectly in a peplum so decided to give a peplum-hack a go. I didn’t think too much about it, just cut the main body of the tee shorter then cut a big strip of fabric for the ruffle about 1.5 times longer than the bottom hem of the shirt. I did have a little play around getting the fit right – I think I ended up grading in the side seams of the tee and ruffle because it was just a bit too wide and frumpy with all of that extra width at the bottom but other than that it was really easy. I wasn’t sure I loved the look on me to start with – I’m about 2 years late to the peplum party, this being the first I have ever made (or owned!) and my husband did ask what the heck was going on with that little skirt at the bottom of my top, haha! But after wearing it a couple of times, I am sold. And when I wore it to school last week (I’m primary school teaching now) I was complimented by a large number of skirt-loving girls, so it is a winner in the eyes of the little ones!
If you love sewing for yourself, or want to start but don’t know what to use – then I recommend this gorgeous fabric. And to make your purchase a little easier, MaaiDesign is offering you a 10% discount on the See You At Six collection until the 30th September 2016! Simply use the code: seeyouatsix
12th of September: Shelley from Bartacks and Singletrack
13th of September: Kate from Sewing With Kate
14th of September: Nicola from Create.nic
15th of September: Anna from Blogless Anna
16th of September: Caroline from Usefulbox
17th of September: Suz from Sewpony
18th of September: Allison from The Tall Mama
19th of September: Toni from Make It Perfect
20th of September: Suzanne from Dressed in Pretty Little Things
21st of September: Natalie from Sew Outnumbered
22nd of September: Jenya from While She Was Sleeping
23rd of September: Maaike from MaaiDesign
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