Hello, my sewing darling dears! This installment of Work in Progress showcases how I matched printed fabric across the front of a button-up shirt.
This project, a pair of flannel pajamas, is a loooong time coming. It’s a pattern I designed myself (!!!), based on my measurements using knowledge from “Metric Pattern Cutting for Women’s Wear” and the Pattern Workshop pattern design class. If you’re signed up for the monthly Sie Macht email, you’ve seen these PJs slowly develop over the better part of a year.
Anyhoo, the trickiest sewing bit of this project is matching the ostrich pattern across the button-up bodice, and I thought you’d like to see how I approached this challenge in a vlog. The directions aren’t super explicit, but I think there’s enough there that you’d be able to match a print, too. (Should you have any follow-up questions, please leave a comment! Thanks.)
I’ve got to come clean on two secrety things about these pajamas that I don’t cover in the vlog:
1.) THE FLANNEL: I can tell you where I got the flannel, but I highly doubt you can get some yourself; sorry. That’s because this ballerina ostrich fabric is a set of flannel sheets from the kids’ bedding department at Target! I saw the print on a Target run, and upon confirming the sheets were 100 percent cotton and decently thick, I thought, “What the heck anyway. GET IN MAH CART.”
2.) THE FAIL: The left bodice piece I cut out in the video was a FAIL! Whomp whomp. On the bodice pattern piece, I drew the 3/4-inch overlap so I wouldn’t forget it should I sew this pattern again. The overlap IS 3/4 inch, BUT, I whiffed on adding the 1/4-inch seam allowance to the edge! 1/4 inch + 3/4 inch = 1 inch. So, what I said in the video is correct, but in practice I flaked and left out the seam allowance. Which means pattern matching was a no-go. I re-cut the left side of the bodice with the correct 1-inch measurement, and that’s what you see at the end of the vid.
Here’s the vlog; please LMK in comments if you have a different technique for pattern matching fabric. Bonus points for links to video tutorials and blog posts!
P.S. The line of orange stitching in the video is NOT permanent. It’s basting, and I added it so it’d be easy for YOU to see how the overlap worked out.
Links of Interest
Here’s the Work in Progress video playlist on YouTube. Each vlog has its own blog post with greater details and links to stuff o’ interest.
I used this book, “Metric Pattern Cutting for Women’s Wear,” to draft my flannel pajamas. (There’s a later edition of this title, should you be interested.)
I also used this course on creating PDF patterns to make my jammies.
This is my cutting mat. I stan this cutting mat so much that I have two of them!
This is my Chaco liner pen. I stan this Chaco liner pen.
Here’s my dusty purple nail polish. It’s an easy color to wear (kinda neutral), and I get compliments on it. π
Here’s the latest generation of my 45 mm Fiskars rotary cutter.
These Kai scissors are a recent acquisition, and OH BABY, how did I live before these shears? They are lightweight and cut like butter, no lie.
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The video music is by Joakim Karud: https://youtube.com/joakimkarud.