Fabric for Fashion - The Swatch Book

So, since I haven't been sewing, really, but apartment hunting and guarantor hunting and stressing about it in general, I thought I'd tell you about a book related to sewing I got myself lately. I'm really trying to cut down on actual physical books that I have, and this is not exactly the smallest, but this is something you can't get for kindle.

I've been wanting to get this book, since I first read about it in Tilly's blog (you can also find more pictures there, I'm lazy...). Now I decided I needed to get it. I'm having trouble of understanding all the different fabrics, especially in English (and in French!). And when you're ordering online, you don't really have a chance to feel how the fabric is. And it's not exactly something I'm great in Finnish either. So, I thought this book was just what I needed. And it's amazing! It doesn't go in very deep on the fabrics, just gives you the main idea of what and how the fabrics are made, but it provides swatches!

So, they introduce the main fabric types and the swatches are not dyed, so they're mainly white/grey so that you won't be distracted of the color of the fabric. This really gave me some understanding of the different common fabric types around. And leaves out a lot of guesswork. Also, the book is about 70 pages, so it's not a huge read. The book is more introductory, but I think a huge book with a lot of information wouldn't work with swatches. It already is quite thick and the nature of the information is such that I need to go back to this book over and over again before I've actually learned to recognize the fabrics without the book. But I can recommend this to anyone with the same problem: it really makes a difference to feel the fabrics.

Colette No. 1: the Meringue Skirt

Well, I traced the patterns to my pattern paper, since I want to keep the original intact. Just in case. And then I started planning how I should cut it. And I realized I have way too much fabric. I mean it's what the book says to get, but in the book they assume that you fold your fabric in half and cut all pieces from there. Well, I'm not used to wasting that much fabric. If I learned something in the crafts class at school, it was not to waste fabric. So I cut my front and back skirt pieces next to each other and from my original 2m of fabric I think I have more than 1m left. Well, I guess I can make another skirt or a blouse to go with this one or... And if I can't think of anything for me, I'm sure my nieces would love the color.

My traced pattern pieces: tracing was quite hard,
since the paper was so thin and the lines weren't that dark.

Here I have already cut the skirt, so you can see: lot of extra fabric.

So, that was yesterday, the tracing and cutting, I mean. Today I did the actual sewing. The instructions on the book were fairly clear, so I really had no problems. Except doing all the darts except one twice, since first time I managed to get them a bit wonky and doing the other side of the zipper twice as well. But I think my skirt is better for it. Because if it's not nice enough, I won't wear it. No problems with the invisible zipper this time either (I did one for the Charleston dress already). And now the finishing is even better with the book's clear instructions. I used the youtube tutorial again (I'll include it here, since the last time it was on my other blog):


I was so excited about sewing, that I forgot to take any pictures of the process. Well, here is the finished product, which I think turned out pretty well:

Although sewing the scallops wasn't a piece of cake... And they definitely aren't perfect. They were tugging the fabric a bit, so I added the small bows to cover it up. But I think it doesn't really show in the end. I was having a too narrow pivot, so it ended up tugging the fabric, because I couldn't cut as far as needed. But at least I know what went wrong and can do better next time.

Also, taking photos was quite hard, I don't own a tripod or as you can see not great at posing either. But I managed to get sharp pictures in the end (the problem was I was standing in front of the camera and it focused on me and then when I went further, of course it was out of focus... live and learn...).

Sewing facts:
Fabric: poplin (100% cotton) 9,90 €/m
Pattern: Meringue Skirt from The Colette Sewing Handbook
Year: 2011
Notions: Interfacing, invisible zipper, hook & eye
Time: 8,5h
First worn: for the pictures
Wear again: definitely, probably to work tomorrow, although I have to get another shirt (I don't like it when my stomach is showing).
Total price: 31 €, would be 21 € with only the amount of fabric I needed, but since I bought the fabric for this skirt, I will add it to its cost. And it will be free for any future project.

I also heard that people are still posting pictures to the flickr group for the Sew Colette Sew along, which I sadly missed. So, I thought to add mine there as well to feel like part of the community.