Ever wonder how a fabric collection is put together?

In my most recent guest post for the BurdaStyle blog, I explain the process I used for designing City Weekend. You can check it out there.

Everyone is excited about knits right now. I must admit, I didn’t have much interest in sewing knits when Moda first approached me with the idea of adding interlock to the City Weekend fabric collection. But when the sample fabric arrived, I realized what a wonderful opportunity I had been given. The fabric quality is simply amazing–unlike any knit I’ve ever used before. It’s substantial and stable, not spongy and fuzzy or thin and whimpy like so many knit fabrics.

Once I started using this interlock in the studio, I quickly remembered how easy and fun it is to sew with knits. I’ve been converted, and I’ve put together some tips and hints to show you how easy it is.

Getting Started

As with any fabric, wash and dry your fabric before you start cutting. Knits tend to shrink more than woven fabrics. The City Weekend interlock shrinks about 8% (which is substantially less than the 15% or more seen in many knit qualities), but you don’t want your beautiful project to get 8% shorter the first time you wash it, do you?

Use all-purpose thread and, preferably, a ballpoint needle. Also note that, whether you’re sewing on a standard sewing machine or a serger (see the guidelines below for sewing on a machine vs. a serger), be careful not to stretch the fabric as you sew. Just feed it through the machine evenly for a nice seam. Interlock stretches on the cross grain and doesn’t “recover” as quickly as jersey knits. If you stretch as you sew, your finished garment can end up wider than you intended. Interlock doesn’t stretch much on the vertical grain, so pay attention to the direction of the stretch when you cut your fabric so you can take advantage of it.

Because the seam allowances for knit patterns are small (seam allowances for Oliver + S patterns are 1/2″, but for sewing patterns using knits we have reduced the seam allowances to 1/4″ to reduce bulk and to work nicely with a serger), mark notches with chalk, a fabric marker, pins, or by cutting them to extend outside the cut edge instead of cutting into the edge of the cut fabric. Here is an example of the notched edge of a knit:

Using a Standard Sewing Machine

Sew all seams with a stretch stitch (some machines have special stitches specifically designed for sewing knits) or with a narrow, shortened zigzag stitch, about 1/16″ wide by 16 stitches long (that is, eight zigs and eight zags to the inch).

While you can leave the seam allowances unfinished, I prefer to finish them together, stitching over the raw edges with a regular zigzag stitch.

Using a Serger

A serger will stitch, trim the seam allowances, and finish the seam allowances all at once. A three- or four-thread overlock stitch is suitable for most purposes. If you’re unsure of the fit, baste the seams first to check before stitching. Be sure to guide the fabric so only the 1/4” seam allowance is used as you stitch. Press seam allowances to one side unless otherwise instructed.

That’s not too difficult, is it?

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.

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.

John of Fat Quarterly is running a giveaway right now that may be of interest to Oliver + S readers. One lucky winner will receive a City Weekend jelly roll.

The contest runs through June 13, so be sure to throw your name into the hat over at Fat Quarterly.

When you exhibit at Quilt Market, it can be difficult to get away from the booth to see the rest of the show. This year I took a quick tour of the floor early one morning so I would have a chance to look around. Here are a few things that caught my eye at the show. I thought you might enjoy seeing them, too:

Hokkoh had some really beautiful prints that felt fresh, unique, and contemporary. You can read more about them over at True Up.

Lecien had this stack of laminated cottons that would be great for the raincoats. Even for boys.

If you’re interested in organic cotton, the market is starting to respond with some great options. You may already be familiar with Cloud 9, who produce very cute prints and are also releasing new print collections and fabrics (like organic flannel!).

And Birch is a newcomer to the organic cotton market, with some great prints as well (and a bunch of cute Birthday Party dresses on display, too!).

Robert Kaufman also announced an organic cotton collection, called Free to Grow.

I thought the presentation of Anna Griffin‘s new collection for Windham Fabrics was so sweet, with an Alice in Wonderland theme. Aren’t the teacups pretty?

Seven Islands represents several popular Japanese fabric companies. I snapped a few photos as I dashed past, mostly of Heather Ross‘s new Far Far Away II collection and all the cute samples made from it, but you can see plenty of other darling samples and fabrics, too.

And this amazing quilt was designed by Kellie Wulfsohn of Don’t Look Now (thanks for the info, Rosa). Just beautiful.

One more booth that I meant to photograph and didn’t but thought you might like to know about anyway: The Snap Source offers a wide variety of great-looking snaps of all sizes and colors. For those of you who don’t like to sew buttons and buttonholes, you might be interested in their selection. The tools look very easy to use and are affordably priced.

We really like Moda’s visual and marketing team. Remember their dollhouse-themed booth we showed you the other day, with all that wonderful attention to detail? It all carries over into the effort Moda puts into their sales and marketing presentations, as well.

For example, here are some of the materials from the show (click on the photos to enlarge for detail):

The little yellow booklet on the left is Moda’s April catalog, put out in advance of Quilt Market. Notice the sewing pattern theme, with the emphasis on children? Let’s look inside:

We were excited to find illustrations from our sewing patterns scattered throughout the book, demonstrating how the various fabric collections could be used in children’s clothing.

The large book you can see in the top photo of this post, with the girl and the dollhouse on the cover, is the Moda Look Book, which is produced for every Quilt Market. It features all the new fabric collections, along with supporting materials like quilt designs, sewing patterns, etc. Here are the City Weekend pages (because we know if we don’t show you, you’ll accuse us of teasing):

See what we mean? Such a great presentation they do.

Moda is also well-known for providing all sorts of pre-cut fabrics so quilters can purchase a little bit of each fabric in a collection.

Here are some jelly rolls, which are 2 1/2″ x 44″ strips of fabric:

And here (starting from the right side) are a layer cake, a charm pack, and what we’re calling a petit four, which is not a standard Moda pre-cut but which they made specially for us to introduce our fabric collection:

Ok, you need to get a sense of the scale on that petit four. They’re a tiny 2 1/2″ square. This snapshot will help:

Cute, yes?

Inside that house-themed tin you saw at the beginning of this post are another Moda pre-cut, the candy bar:

So what can you make with jelly rolls, charm packs, petits fours, and candy bars? Well, I asked that, too. You can sew them together to make very easy quilts like these:

Or you can get much fancier, with quilts specially designed to make use of these special cuts. Entire books have been written about quilts made just from Moda pre-cuts. You can visit the Moda Bake Shop for free patterns and ideas, too.

Next week we’ll show you our first quilt design, which you may have glimpsed in the photos of our booth. We’ll tell you all about it shortly.

Are you sick of all this fabric-geek-tech stuff yet, or are you enjoying the real nitty-gritty of how fabric is made?

I have a new post on the BurdaStyle blog this month covering manufactured fibers like polyester, nylon, spandex, and the new and exciting microfibers.

If this is all a bit too much technical detail for you, don’t despair. Next month I’ll come up a level and will use this fundamental information to start discussing how the fabrics made from these different types of fibers can be best used.

We are very pleased to announce the first Oliver + S fabric collection, City Weekend, produced by Moda. Here’s a preview for you.

City Weekend debuts next month at Quilt Market, where fabric store buyers place orders for the following season. We don’t want to discuss too much about the collection yet (since it’s not going to be available in stores for several months), but we are looking forward to sharing more details with you when we return from Quilt Market.

Suffice it to say that in addition to the printed cottons, City Weekend also includes interlock knit fabrics. So of course we’ve been busy designing some new Oliver + S patterns to highlight the knits. Stay tuned for more details!