I’ve been dreading this blog post because it means we’ve come to the end of my Principles of Fabric Selection series. But I know many of you have been waiting to hear what I have to say on this topic, so here we go.

Juvenile prints are a subset of the larger print category known as conversational prints, or prints with pictures in them. They are intended to appeal to a young person and often feature animals or toys. Juvenile prints are cute and appealing and seem to be frequently used by home seamstresses, maybe because they are so different from prints typically found in ready-made clothing.

I like juvenile prints. I just don’t like them to be very juvenile. I like little robots and flowers and animals and things as long as there’s some degree of sophistication to them. (There’s that word–sophisticated–again.)

The Japanese fabric companies seem to handle this well. They print on unbleached linen or on a solid background. The prints are small and spare with lots of empty space around the images. And in general the prints aren’t powder pink, baby blue, or filled with loads of vibrant primary colors that compete with each other for your attention.

I also like Heather Ross’s designs (disclosure: Heather is a friend in addition to being a talented illustrator and designer) because although they’re filled with brilliant colors, the palettes are sophisticated (i.e., not just primary colors) and the images are a little quirky rather than being saccharine sweet. Just like Heather. (Just kidding, Heather. Or maybe you would take that as a compliment….)

So let’s say you fall in love with a particular juvenile print and really want to use it. What’s the best way to sew clothing that doesn’t overpower the child or overwhelm the viewer? Well, all those other principles of fabric selection we’ve already discussed can help. You might pick a solid or neutral color to pair with the print to help tone it down a bit, or find a small supporting print from another fabric collection that enhances it. Here are a few examples from the Oliver + S Flickr group that I thought handled juvenile prints especially well.

This owl print is used in just a small quantity and, paired with the gray solid, provides a nice touch of whimsy that doesn’t overpower.

Heather’s matryoshka dolls are cute on a brown ground, and I love the black and white gingham ribbon at the hem of this Lazy Days skirt. Very sophisticated.

While this Japanese print might otherwise overwhelm, I think this dress is successful because there is plenty of white space around around the characters, and the white bib with elegant brown buttons helps to frame her darling little face. (Note that this print definitely works best on younger children like this little sweetie!)

Here is another Japanese print that’s been paired with a red and white gingham for great effect. Cute, right?

This is a subtle juvenile print on an unbleached linen/cotton ground. (Oh, those fabulous Japanese fabric companies!) I love how this one is paired with a subtle neutral-patterned print on top, and the red piping and buttons give this Tea Party Playsuit its pop of color while tying the prints together. It’s very successful.

Plenty of white space between these Heather Ross bicycles, and I love the way the piping continues the small-scale pattern from the dress yoke. This is really a wonderful dress.

Using this Heather Ross print for the entire dress would not have occurred to me, and I think it’s especially successful because of the solid piping. I really love this one.

This preppy whale print verges on overwhelming, but the small size of the skirt combined with the ric-rac trimmed gingham pockets somehow rescues it, and I love it for that. This is such a fun summer skirt that could be worn with a simple white top and red sandals.

I really like how the dark red yoke of this Tea Party Sundress picks up the tiny bits of red in the print.

The playful elephant print looks great because it’s limited to two colors. I like the combination of a fun print with the more grown-up Sunday Brunch jacket.

And by the way, this principle does not apply to PJs. When it comes to sleepwear, anything goes!

Next time I do a series of principles like this, remind me to list fewer principles! I feel like we’ve already addressed this principle in the course of covering some of the others, so I’ll make this a quick post.

As I’ve mentioned before, I really like the refreshing look of tonal and two-color prints right now. They’re easy on the eye, especially with the amount of color that has been prevalent in the market in recent years. In the Flickr group, I was able to find several great examples of how you have used tonal and two color prints in your Oliver + S outfits, and I’ll highlight some of my favorites here. I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I did.

Black and white in a subtle combination (if there’s ever been such a thing as subtle black and white!) make a really elegant but age-appropriate Sunday Brunch Jacket and Skirt.

This Tea Party Dress has more than two colors, but the color palette is tight: brown, gold and shades of blue. This qualifies as tonal in my book. I think this dress is fantastically successful and understated while remaining playful and interesting:

Here is a 2 + 2 Blouse in a really wonderful red and white print from Valori Wells‘s Del Hi collection. I love how simple and clean this print looks.

Here is another two-color print with red and white. This Tea Party Sundress looks great with the addition of a third color, since it’s still clean and not overwhelming.

Yellow and white looks fresh and exuberant, especially for spring and summer. This trendy jacquard-inspired print (another traditional print that’s been updated for today) on a Puppet Show Tunic looks clean and youthful while remaining subtle and not overwhelming.

I like the neutral, muted tones of the print on this Bubble Dress. These colors are great for winter or summer, I think.

And since the next (and last!) principle of fabric selection discusses juvenile prints, I thought it would be nice to include this tonal School Days Raincoat as a teaser. See the little pigs on the print? I love how subtle and whimsical they are.

When you read the words “traditional print,” do you think boring, dark, and dull?

Actually, a lot of contemporary prints are based on traditional prints, and they aren’t necessarily boring or dull at all. In fact many designers start their creative process by taking a traditional print and altering it in some subtle way. These updated versions of classic prints make great fabrics for garment sewing because they tend to be sophisticated and understated. As a result, they allow you to see the child before the outfit.

I thought it would be fun to show you a few traditional prints, updated to look current and new for today, that work especially well for children’s clothing. As with the other posts in this series, all photos come from the Oliver + S Flickr group. Click on the hyperlinked text in the description of the garment to see the original Flickr photo and to leave feedback for the talented seamstresses who created them.

Polka dots have been around forever, right? Personally, I never get tired of them. Today polka dots are printed in a variety of scales and colors that look fresh, young, and contemporary. I like the small dot in this 2+2 blouse, combined with the printed plaid. (Note that the plaid is also a traditional pattern, and this one is printed to look like it’s cut on bias, which is especially fun!) Polka dots are easy to mix with other prints as you can see from this photo:

Polka dots can also look good on their own, as you can see from this classic Lazy Days Skirt:

Polka dots can be re-designed, too, like this dot with an outline. Nice for a summery-feeling Birthday Party Dress, yes? And notice that printed plaid tab that complements the dot.

This star print used for this Birthday Party Dress maintains the feel of a well-spaced polka dot but switches things around a bit. The print has a traditional style, reminding me of the Betsy Ross craze that happened in 1976 when the U.S. celebrated our bicentennial. But it looks completely current in large part because of all the white space between the stars. Such a fun summer dress!

Also traditional are simple, classic floral prints that are not overly bold, bright, and busy. I like the clear colors and simple designs of these two printed floral Birthday Party dresses (first and second).

Geometric patterns have been around forever, but with a little updating they can always look new and refreshing, like this Jump Rope Dress in a foulard print:

And I’ve been admiring this Lazy Days Skirt for quite a while now. The print reminds me of traditional blue and white Scandinavian (Royal Copenhagen) or Dutch Delft pottery, but the print itself is new and clean.

Classic prints, updated for today’s sensibilities, make a great choice for children’s clothing. Have examples of your own work with prints of this type? By all means, upload them to the Flickr group for all to see.

Regarding our last post about the principles of fabric selection, one commenter asked an excellent question:

“In all of the examples you’ve chosen, the solid is at the top and the print is on the bottom. Do you think it’s necessary to separate the print from the face with a solid, or can it work with the print on the bodice and a solid skirt?”

I think the placement of the print and solid can absolutely be reversed. Here are two examples of samples we’ve made in which the pattern is on top and the solid is on the bottom.

I think it’s really a matter of balance. A very busy print might not feel right up close to the face, especially in a large area. But a tonal or softer print would certainly be fine.

Proportion of a garment or outfit can also play heavily into your choice of where to use a print, too. For example, the Puppet Show Tunic and the Tea Party Sundress both have yokes with an empire waist (fashion trivia: yes, it really is pronounced om-peer), where the smaller area at the yoke might work nicely with a busy or oversized print and the rest of the garment either solid or a softer tonal print.

I’ll have an example of this for you shortly; I’m taking a project along on our Vermont sewing workshop this weekend and will show it to you shortly after I return. See you next week!

Let’s say you find a print you really love, but you’re a little nervous about using it for a child’s garment. Maybe it’s a large, bold print. Maybe it’s very bright or multi-colored. Maybe it’s both. You’re afraid that by using the print you’ll break the first of our principles of fabric selection–see the child before the outfit.

You don’t necessarily need to shy away from bright, bold prints. You just need to be sure you don’t overdo it. One way to do this is to ground them with coordinating solids or neutrals. It’s very much the same reason that blue jeans go with everything. They’re neutral, and they’re an excellent base from which to start building an outfit.

This is an easy principle that many people instinctively follow. There are many more excellent examples of this in the Oliver + S Flickr group.

By selecting a solid color that ties back to the print, this dress looks beautifully coordinated without being too busy or bold.

A solid brown yoke helps to tone down this over-sized and colorful zigzag print on the Swingset Tunic. By grounding the bold print with the neutral solid, the creator of this garment has taken a very busy, potentially overwhelming, print and made it perfectly appropriate for a child’s top.

Notice how this seamstress has paired a large Amy Butler floral print with a dark solid. I especially like how the yoke of this dress picks up the neutral tones in the print. A solid pink yoke would have been too much for this dress, but the neutral color makes it look especially elegant and sophisticated.

These three garments teach a good lesson. You don’t need to be afraid of bold, bright prints and colors. You just need to be careful about not overusing them. And if you do decide to use one, make sure to ground it with a neutral or a solid.

As a rule, most quilting fabric collections are comprised of a group of prints that are intended to work together. There is a formula to assembling a collection like this, and most groups work around one central print that holds the collection together. That print is usually larger in scale than the others, has more colors, and sets the tone for the group. As a result, the central print is often the print that attracts people to a collection.

That central print is also the one I tend to avoid when I’m selecting fabrics to make Oliver + S garments.

Isn’t this Birthday Party Dress elegantly understated? I have no idea who designed these fabrics (I don’t recall ever seeing them before), and that’s one of the things that makes the dress work so well. I like it that I’m not able to identify the prints.

Why? Well, in part because it’s the most readily identifiable print. It’s the one that you’re most likely to see and think, “Oh, that’s a print by so-and-so.”

This Tea Party Sundress is made from a Heather Ross print. But the print is one of the supporting prints from this collection, not the central print. I like the sweet, little flowers.

The central print is also often busier than the other prints in the collection, with more colors and a larger size. If you make a garment out of a central print, the finished piece of clothing can often be overwhelming–forcing people who see it to notice the dress before they notice the child. (So you can see that although these principles are separate, there is a lot of overlap between them.)

This Tea Party Sundress, made by Spool in Philadelphia, was created from a supporting print in a Denyse Schmidt collection. I like how Spool has balanced the colors in the print with neutrals, adding in little pops of orange with the piping of the curved seam and with the buttons.

I often find that the supporting prints in a collection–the prints that aren’t quite so bold, bright, and large in scale–are easier to work with and have a little more staying power. They don’t date as quickly or start to feel over-used as much as central prints do.

This 2+2 top serves as a great example of what you can do with a nice supporting print from a collection. It’s not overly bold and flashy. But the print’s tonal shades of purple make it work well as a shirt.

Notice in all the examples I’ve chosen to illustrate this post that there is plenty of color and a wide variety of style among these selections. A garment can embrace color–even bold colors–and different motifs as long as they don’t overwhelm the design or the person wearing it.

This 2+2 top has been made in very bright yellow but in what’s obviously a supporting print from a collection. The small scale of the print balances the brightness of the color. I like how the tab and collar trim don’t match perfectly with the print. It lends some visual interest to the top.

For many of these garments, I can’t identify the designer of the fabric, which I think is a good thing. It’s not that fabric designers don’t deserve recognition and shouldn’t have a distinctive style. But when a garment is made from a very bold, large print in a signature style, chances are good that the child will get lost behind the clothing.

This 2 + 2 blouse and pleated skirt is understated and tremendously elegant while still wholly appropriate for a child.

If you had run across these fabrics at your local quilt shop, would you have thought “children’s clothing” when you saw them? Probably not. But didn’t this outfit turn out great? I like how Hannah, the seamstress, chose a subdued, muted color palette for the outfit. She has been very subtle in her use of color. The grayish-bluish colors in the 2 + 2 blouse, offset on the cream-colored background, are very understated. And the combination of that rich brown for the skirt might be an unexpected choice, but I love how the ensemble comes together. It’s very restrained in its use of color (the whole outfit is playing with a number of neutral tones), but in this case I think it works well with the lines of the design. Together the skirt and the blouse are elegant. They are sophisticated. And they definitely allow you to see the child before the outfit.

People sometimes don’t realize that it’s OK to be a bit restrained when it comes to using color for children’s clothing. Sometimes just a little pop of color is all an outfit needs.

Birthday Party Dress sewn by our own Brooke Reynolds as an Easter dress for her daughter (love that matching tie for her son!).

This Birthday Party Dress has been made in a plain, neutral linen—with just a delicate wisp of color added thanks to the Liberty print used for the tab. This, too, is a bit unexpected. I love the choice of natural linen for the dress, and the addition of the print takes a plain fabric and turns it into something elegant. People tend to think that a dress for a little girl needs to be made from a busy, floral print. This dress turns that assumption on its head, using a tiny floral print in just a wee dose, and it works especially well.

But just because I’ve highlighted a couple very understated outfits doesn’t mean that everything needs to be very reserved and reliant on muted colors.

This Birthday Party Dress looks cool and ready for summer in a calm, relaxed palette of greens.

Here’s a dress that in some respects is the mirror opposite of the last one I highlighted. This Birthday Party Dress uses a floral print for the body and a linen for the tab. The print is busier than the others I’ve highlighted so far, but it’s still somewhat modest in comparison to many fabrics on the market today. It’s almost monochromatic with the different tones of green on a white background, but the lightest shade of green—which verges on yellow—steps out from the background a bit to give the dress a little visual interest. The fabric, while reserved and understated, is perfectly appropriate for a child’s garment and actually gives the finished piece an air of sophistication that you don’t find in most ready-made clothing for children. It feels cool and summery, doesn’t it?

Now please don’t infer from what I’m saying here that you need to be afraid of color. You can use very vibrant colors. You just need to select and balance your colors carefully.

Bright yellow is toned down with neutrals for a large (but not overpowering) print in this 2 + 2 blouse with Puppet Show shorts.

I really love this combination. For this outfit, the sewer has combined the Puppet Show short with the 2 + 2 top. For the shorts she’s used a gray denim, and she has played this very effectively off the Amy Butler print she’s selected for the top. The gray of the print subtly picks up the gray of the denim (which is repeated in the patch at center front), but these neutrals are really there to serve as a base for the yellow in the print that subtly steps to the fore. The outfit, again, is elegant and mature (not juvenile at all), but it’s wholly appropriate for a child.

Here’s another piece sewn by the same sewer that uses even more color.

Even bright colors can be subtle and elegant, as you can see with this Birthday Party Dress.

You have noticed here, haven’t you, that we’ve moved away from neutrals and have landed solidly in the land of pink? (No matter how much we try to mitigate against it at home, there’s a certain four-year-old there who just has to have her pink dresses….) But a bright pink fabric—bright enough to make any pink-loving little girl happy—can still be turned into a sophisticated and understated dress if it’s selected and balanced correctly.

Note that although this dress is very pink, it’s not a busy-print pink. There aren’t flowers and six other colors in the print. The print is a vibrant color, but it’s grounded nicely by the simple geometric pattern laid onto the bright base, by the matching solid brown tab, and by the brown shirt layered under the dress. This is a perfect example of how it’s possible to use very vibrant colors and still create an outfit that’s somewhat understated and that ensures you’ll see the child before the dress.

There’s a l
ittle secret I have that helps me pick the more reserved, and often more sophisticated, prints that appear in quilt shops each season. I tend to avoid the central prints in most designers’ collections. But that’s the topic of the next post in the series. So stay tuned.

This Sunday Brunch jacket, made by June Beetle and found on our Flickr group, demonstrates the “see the child first” principle nicely. The colors and print are flattering without being overpowering. And that muted yellow looks terrific on her!

You undoubtedly know by now that Oliver + S designs feature classic, simple styling with clean lines and not a lot of unnecessary ornamentation. By designing this way, I’m trying to create beautiful clothing that doesn’t call attention to itself but that highlights the charms of the child who is wearing it. When I select fabric, I go for the same effect.

There’s been a trend in the quilt industry over the last several years toward very bold, busy, colorful prints. Many prints today are actually printed in 10 or more vibrant colors. While I like some of these prints, I tend to shy away from the loudest, boldest, most colorful ones when I make Oliver + S garments. A lot of these prints, when turned into dresses or tops, scream “Look at me! I’m a print by Designer X!” I don’t necessarily want to dress my child—or anyone’s child—as a walking billboard for a fabric collection or designer of the moment. When you dress a child in a garment made from a very busy fabric, you run the risk that the child will get lost behind the print. (And if you combine two or more of these prints in a single outfit…well, it’s all exponential, isn’t it?)

I’d be willing to bet that you noticed these two adorable sisters before you saw their sweet matching Birthday Party dresses, yes? Dresses by A.J.Jacks, one of our Boutique Sewer Program participants.

I also worry that many of these bright, bold prints won’t age very well. We all have some cringe-worthy photos of ourselves as children, don’t we? Take a closer look at one of those photos. Chances are the clothing hasn’t aged well because the styling of the garment or the print of the fabric is overly complicated or very “of the moment.” In designing Oliver + S garments, I’m consciously trying to achieve a timeless style. When viewed two decades from now, a 2009 photo of a child wearing an Oliver + S design shouldn’t cause anyone to say, “What is that you were wearing?” or “What was your mother thinking, dressing you like that?” (I can say this from experience because I have plenty of photos of myself from the 1970s that elicit just those sorts of comments. What was it with those purple bell-bottom jeans with the silver rivets down the legs?) Rather, someone should say, “Hey, you were a really cute kid.”

The beige ground and clear-but-muted plum, mustard, and other colors in this 2 + 2 Blouse look wonderful on a toddler. Sewn by Angela Maureen.

So when I’m selecting fabrics for making my own Oliver + S garments, I tend toward the more subtle and sophisticated prints. Although it goes against the grain of a lot of what’s being done today in the home sewing industry, I think subtle and sophisticated work exceptionally well for children’s clothing. The fabrics don’t have to be loud and bright to capture people’s attention. I would rather let people notice the clothing after they see the child wearing the garments.

I think you’ll also notice that high-end designers are using more subtle and sophisticated prints these days. And this isn’t to say that we need to be afraid of color. I love color, and I’ll talk more about it when I discuss some of my other fabric selection principles in future posts.

Every season at Quilt Market, the show’s organizers sponsor a series of Schoolhouse presentations for shop owners who are interested in learning more on topics of interest to them. This season, Oliver + S led two Schoolhouse sessions.

One of our talks focused on how savvy retailers can increase sales in their shops by making samples of Oliver + S garments. It’s no secret in the industry that if a retailer makes a sample of a quilt or a garment the pattern and the fabrics used for the sample will fly out the door.

As you know, Oliver + S patterns are designed with a sophisticated aesthetic in mind, and we wanted to share with our retailers how we go about selecting fabrics that highlight that fact. After all, the right design made up in the wrong fabric doesn’t, in the end, turn into a successful garment.

We received a good deal of positive feedback on what we presented, and we thought that you might be interested in what we’re calling the Oliver + S principles of fabric selection as well. So, without further ado, here they are:

• See the child before the outfit
• Think sophisticated and understated
• Look at the supporting fabrics in a collection, not necessarily the central prints
• Solid colors and neutrals can ground a bright, busy print
• Be eclectic; don’t be afraid to mix collections
• Look for updated versions of traditional prints
• Tonal and two-color prints look very fresh
• Approach juvenile prints with caution

Over the next several weeks we’ll be publishing a series of posts that explain and illustrate (with your photos from the Flickr group) each of these principles. Many of you understand these concepts intuitively and have selected great fabrics that demonstrate these principles. We can’t wait to highlight some of your work and to talk more in depth about why we believe each of these ideas is important.

(Note: we’ll be tagging each post in this series with the label, “principles of fabric selection.” You can click on that link to see all of the posts brought together into one page.)