Hi it's Hayley at Seamwork and today I have another edition of our monthly
fabric videos from home. This month in place of a photo shoot the Seamwork
team made and modeled the Willis shirt in the Dorian shorts. Today I'm going to
walk you through the fabrics that they worked with and I'm also going to share
some fabrics from my stash that would be really great for these projects so let's
get started.
Willis is a really classic sleeveless button-up. It has features like a stand
collar, a center front placket, patch pocket, and two hem variations: a curved
hem and a straight hem. You're gonna want to look for light to medium weight woven
fabrics. I think of Willis is kind of a friendly skill builder if you are
using some of these techniques for the first time you might want to go with a
more medium weight fabric it's gonna be a little bit more forgiving to work with
so things like cotton shirting, chambray, linens, all really great options. If some
of these features are more familiar to you, you could try something a little bit
more challenging like a tencel or a silk - those would be really great options
as well. Sienna made her Willis top in a washed
linen from Style Maker Fabric. Washed linen is like the super luxurious sister
to linen. It has a little bit more drape but it can also handle all of the
details of the Willis top really great. You can find washed linen and a whole
bunch of different colors so be sure to check that out if you like the look of
her Willis. Taylor made her Willis from a striped cotton lawn from the Confident
Stitch. When I asked her about her fabric she said that she loved that it struck
that balance between structured and drapey and it was really really easy to
sew with. So if you're looking for something that's a little bit lighter
weight but isn't a total pain to sew a lawn would be a really great
for you. Chelsea made the pattern hack version of the Willis. She used a linen
and viscose blend from Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics. She told me that
she really liked that the viscose added a drapey-ness to the linen that made it
really soft and lovely to wear, but also helped it to be a little bit more
resistant to wrinkles. Next let's take a look at the Dorian shorts.
Dorian has a really cool panel design with pockets set into those side panels.
It also has a special waistband that features elastic just at the sides. I
think that this makes them really easy to fit. It has our special really easy to
sew fly construction. If you haven't sewn a fly with us before I really
encourage you to check out this pattern and check it out it's amazing. We take
you through it step by step in a super duper simple way. For Dorian you're gonna
want to look for medium weight fabric it needs to have that perfect balance of
structure that's going to hold the shape well and create a nice fly but it can't
be so heavyweight that the elastic is going to get really clunky. So things
like denim, canvas, twills those are all going to be really great options for the
Dorian shorts. Here we have Sarai. Sarai sewed her Dorian shorts out of a really
lovely linen it's called Nevada linen. It is from Stonemountain and Daughter
Fabrics. She loves that this linen is a perfect
bottom weight really well suited for shorts. I imagine it would also make
great pants as well and it has all of those really great qualities that we all
love and linen, it has great structure, really beautiful hand, it's breezy and
breathable, and of course very lovely to sew with.
Here is Meg. Meg sewed her Dorian bonus pattern out of another washed linen from
Blackbird Fabrics. She told me that she really loved how textured this fabric
was and that it was really breezy and would be amazing to wear in warmer
weather. Now I'm going to show you some fabrics from my stash that would be
perfect for sewing Willis. The first fabric I have is this really amazing
textured rayon fabric I got years ago at a fabric store used
to work at called Sew LA. It's no longer open sadly but they had amazing fabric.
It has this really great kind of grid texture and really drapey this would
definitely be a little bit more challenging to sew with but you could
use a spray starch or something to help make that process a little bit easier. It
also wouldn't be nearly as difficult as sewing silk so if you want to dip your
toes in the lighter weight fabric pond, I definitely recommend something like a
rayon. Next I have this really great double gauze fabric. I think double gauze
is a little bit more of an unexpected fabric choice for a button-up but would
be really lovely. There's a ton of different double gauzes out there. Make
sure you're not working with something that has a really open waeve that might
not be able to take some of the details of Willis really well. This particular
one is on the more crisp side so be really great for this particular
pattern. Let's take a look and some fabrics from my stash that would be
well-suited for the Dorian shorts. First up I have one of my favorite fabrics of
all time it is the Robert Kaufman Brussels Washer Linen, if you haven't
encountered this fabric before it is a linen/rayon blend. It comes in solids but
it also yarn dyed fabrics or textures like these. You could also find it now in
stripes and checks, it's amazing because of the fiber blend it has that
perfect balance a little bit of drape and structure
and it's just really really lovely, it's reasonably priced, it's a wide fabric so
I recommend checking it out. Next I have a really great textured canvas fabric. It
is a cotton-poly blend, it's a little bit on the more crisp side but I think that
they would hold their shape really well and this fabric and that texture
just gives it a really a really polished look to them rather than just a flat
canvas. You can see it's a little bit more structured, but would be really
lovely. That is all for this edition of our at home fabric videos. Thank you so
much for joining me I'd love to hear what kinds of fabrics you're gonna sew this
month's patterns out of so be sure to let me know in the comments below. Thanks
for joining me and happy sewing!