“How Much Fabric” reference cards

September 12, 2009 by Anne Weaver Leave a Comment

Gwen from After the Dress (and now Gwyn Hug) is now offering her popular “How Much Fabric” reference tables printed on plastic wallet cards. If you’ve ever found fabulous fabric while out shopping and then thought, “I’d love to make a shirt from this. I wonder how much I’d need?”, then these cards are what you need.

Her tables show the average amount of fabric needed to make different types of clothing and help take the guesswork out of buying fabric. In order to come up with these averages, she researched the yardage requirements on over 2000 patterns.

There is a separate card showing the average yardage for a different type of garment: skirts, pants, tops, dresses, and jackets. Within each table, the yardage requirements are broken down by:

–Garment size
–Type of cut (minimum, average, and maximum), along with line drawings showing examples of styles that fit these categories.
–Fabric width (45″ and 60″)

There is an additional “safety margin” table on each card showing “for several different amounts of add-on to the average, what percentage of the patterns that were used to build the table can be made with that new amount of fabric.”

The credit card size means that they fit easily in your wallet so you’ll have them with you when you need them.

You can purchase the whole set of “How Much Fabric” reference cards from GwynHug. Just $14.95 buys you the set of 5 cards.

[photo from After the Dress]

[tags]sewing, supplies, review, How Much Fabric, shopping, yardage, estimate[/tags]

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Stitched Scrapbook Paper Christmas Cards - Sewing Tutorial

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Learn All About Sewing Velvet Fabric

I’m always tempted by the pretty velvets at the fabric store. So much texture! And the way the fibers catch the light! But sewing on velvet is trickier than you’d think. That nap that lends beautiful texture also likes to slip and crawl. That nap can also spell disaster if you cut a piece the wrong direction. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t use buy that velvet and sew it into something gorgeous, you just need to go into your velvet sewing project prepared. And Melissa at Melly Sews has a post that takes you step by step through sewing on velvet.

Velvet is such a luscious fabric, especially for winter sewing projects. Of course there are velvet Christmas sewing projects – stockings, tree skirts, santa hats – but velvet is beautiful for all winter. Think of all the gorgeous velvet dresses, evening bags, hair accessories, even pillows and other home décor that you see all winter long.

Melly Sews’ post gives you the tips and tricks you need to know in order for your velvet sewing project to end up a success. There are types of projects better suited for velvets, and kinds of projects to avoid. She describes the different types of velvet available. And she also tells the best way to lay out and cut your pattern pieces from velvet fabric. Her tutorial also covers marking, pressing, and of course sewing that beautiful fabric. There’s also a video included in case that’s your preferred method for learning.

Head over to Melly Sews to learn how to sew on velvet fabric.

And if you want to learn more about that lovely blue velvet dress shown, she has a post that tells more about it including 2 ways to style it depending on if you want to be more dressy or more casual.

[photo credit: Melly Sews]

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