My first attempt at sewing stretch fabrics – inspired by the Great British Sewing Bee

_{Some items have been gifted}

As usual, I’ve been inspired by the Great British Sewing Bee to get back behind my sewing machine and make myself a summer top. It was while watching last week’s episode featuring lots of stretchy fabric challenges that I first thought I’d like to have a go at using stretch materials. I was kindly gifted some jersey fabric from Minerva Craft, along with a pattern and lots of stretch trimmings. Here’s what I chose for my project:

1. Firstly I chose the pattern that I wanted to try out – this Vogue pattern for a top. I thought this would lend itself well to being made from stretch fabrics and looked straightforward enough without any fiddly zips or buttons go worry about.

    

2. I chose this “Lemon Summer” jersey fabric. The pattern told me that knit or jersey fabrics would be best to use and after a lot a deliberation (and confusion over double-jersey!) I chose this pretty floral fabric in bright spring-like colours.

    

3. I wanted to follow the pattern and use a contrasting fabric for the arms so I chose a lilac jersey fabric to pick out the lilac in the floral print.

    

1. As this was my first attempt at making a stretch garment I wanted to get the correct thread so I chose a Mettler Serflock stretch thread. I decided that 1000m of white would be best as I could use it on other projects in the future if this one works out well!

2. Finally, I decided that a stretch bias binding would be fun to try out and again I wanted to use a contrasting colour to pick out some of the tones in the floral pattern, so I plumped for rose pink binding.

The whole bundle arrived this week so I started on cutting out the pattern straight away. It’s always a nerve-wracking moment when I cut out the fabric, so I carefully folded, smoothed, pinned and double-checked everything before I started snipping! I now how all the pattern pieces cut out and I’m ready to start the construction so I’ll crack on with it now and share the results with you when I’m done – watch this space!

Some items in this blog post have been gifted to me and the pink links indicate a gifted product, affiliate link or information source. All thoughts and opinions in this post are based on my own experience and I am not responsible for your experience 🙂