If you sew for yourself, you may have read our Principles of Fabric Selection series and wondered how they apply to your own sewing.

Here’s a quick answer. Our most recent guest post for the Burda Style blog talks about using prints for sewing women’s apparel.

Back in design school, one of our best professors frequently gave our class the assignment to go home and each sketch 50 dress concepts before class the next day. To come up with that many unique ideas in one evening, on top of our full course-load of homework, felt unimaginably difficult. But it took that many sketches to really push out new and imaginative designs, and somehow we always managed to complete the task on time.

I recently gave myself the same type of homework and spent the past three full days filling a sketchbook with page upon page of ideas for future sewing patterns. Hopefully when I look back at the designs I’ll find some useful ideas, now that the fall patterns are at the printer and it’s time to start work on the spring collection.

While I was in the studio, looking for some inspiration, I also came across some other sketches and thought you might enjoy seeing them. These are the spring sewing patterns, not in their first incarnation as preliminary ideas but as part of the package I send to Dan, our illustrator, each season, so he can paint the paper doll clothing. Among the many ways that I communicate with Dan are sketches I make showing him what the clothes should look like on the dolls. I also send photographs, fabric and color swatches, and lengthy notes about each garment. But the sketches are the most useful part of the package, I think. I can show exactly what the silhouette is: how long a skirt should be, how closely (or loosely) a garment should fit, where the pockets are placed and how the collar sits. Here is the Ice Cream Dress (sorry for the smudges; I generally work with pencil on vellum so I can draw directly on top of the a paper doll to get the proportions right.):

I get to pretend that I’m an illustrator when I do this, except that I use a lot of words to show what I mean. Dan doesn’t have that luxury. (On the other hand, he’s a professional illustrator; I merely need to communicate an idea, thank goodness.)

Here are the other spring patterns, just for the fun of it:

So I spell out (literally) a lot of information here, but there is one area in which I let Dan have complete control: I always suggest a few props to coordinate with the name of each pattern, and Dan chooses exactly which prop to draw and how to show it. He’s never disappointed me. My favorite prop is still the bunny slippers. After he finished the painting, I found an exact match for them and bought them as a prop for Quilt Market.

Ok, back to my sketches.

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, it still feels too early to start thinking about fall sewing. After all, today the weather is expected to break even more records here in New York, after three solid weeks of mercilessly hot weather. But when I saw this Miu Miu ad in a fashion magazine I was immediately inspired. Wouldn’t that plaid wool make a terrific School Days coat?

This past Thursday morning I went shopping in the garment center and visited one of my favorite stores, Beckenstein Men’s Fabrics (I don’t know what the whole “fabric czar” thing is; I still call them Beckenstein’s but maybe they changed their name?), where they have a fantastic collection of high-quality wool fabric. The shop is loaded with other inspiring fabrics, too: Scottish tweed, Italian suiting, seersucker striped cotton, and melton wool in a wide variety of colors. And it’s all presented in a suitably old-school setting, too. It feels like the shop of a thread-worn gentlemen’s tailor, and when I visit I always wish I could stay to curl up on a chair in the corner with either a needle and thread or a good book.

I was shopping for S’s school uniforms, which I’ll be blogging about soon. But despite the weather, I’m also thinking seriously about winter coats. Maybe this year I’ll do something with a plaid fabric.

The Ice Cream Social got started over the weekend, and it’s already making excellent progress. How is your sewing coming? Here are some posts to help you follow along:

• Day 1
• Transferring markings to the fabric
• Interfacing, button loop and yoke

As a little inspiration, and to remind you that you can sew the Ice Cream Dress as a simple top too, here’s a photo taken this morning of S wearing her new top made from a recent Anna Maria Horner voile.

For the next two weeks, you’ll receive 20% off your order when you purchase two or more patterns from our website.

Use coupon code SUMMER2010 when checking out to receive your discount.

Why not use this as an opportunity to pick up copies of some of our backlist patterns that will not be available for much longer. Over the next several months, one or both size ranges of the following styles will go out of print. Once they’re gone, they’re gone for good:

• Swingset Tunic and Skirt
• Bedtime Story Pajamas
• Sunday Brunch Jacket and Skirt
• Jump Rope Dress
• School Days Jacket and Coat

Here’s the fine print: this offer is good July 14 through July 28 and applies to retail purchases of Oliver + S patterns only. You must purchase a minimum of two patterns and use the coupon code at checkout to receive the discount.

We hope you’ll use this as inspiration to do a little summer sewing for a little someone in your life.

Are you participating in the Ice Cream Social? It just so happens that I’ve been sewing Ice Cream Dresses in my free time lately, too. This is the first of two versions I made over the weekend. I blogged about it over at disdressed.

We both like the unicorns on the pockets. And we like the fact that the double gauze is a cool fabric for these insanely hot days.

If you haven’t already, join the Ice Cream Social and share what you make.

Planning to sew an Ice Cream Dress this summer? Why not join the global group of seamstresses who are participating in this month’s Ice Cream Dress sew along.

Hosted by Amy of Badskirt in Australia, the sew along promises to be great fun, and there are some nice giveaways to be had too. Check out the schedule for the month, and sign up to participate in the sew along’s Flickr group.

Our thanks to Amy for organizing and hosting the event.

Since it hit the road in April, our spring and summer trunk show has made stops from Vancouver to Philadelphia. It’s now heading back across the continent to do another west-to-east cycle.

The show features items from our Spring and Summer 2010 collection sewn from prints in Denyse Schmidt’s Hope Valley line, with the addition of a School Days raincoat made from a recent Amy Butler laminate.

Here’s a list of the remaining stops on this season’s tour. Catch the show, if you can, at a retailer in your area this summer.

• July 7-18: Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics, Berkeley, CA
• July 27-August 8: The Painted Cottage, Ashland, WI
• August 13-22: Stitch House, Dorchester, MA
• August 26-September 6: Alewives Fabrics, Nobleboro, ME