Jayne’s Nell t-shirt dress!

Hi everyone,

So, when the lovely ladies at Felicity Fabrics announced that they had some new fabrics arriving and would we like to choose anything for our upcoming blog posts, I was immediately drawn to this amazing French Terry.

I don’t usually go for fabric that have themes, animal print or even animals but for some reason this horse fabric caught my eye.

I just thought ‘wow’ this is very retro looking and I also loved the rich autumn brown colours in the design. The horses also looked really old fashioned and not gimmicky at all which is another reason I chose it.

I knew immediately that this fabric would make a great autumn winter top to wear with my jeans and chunky boots. 

French Terry is one of my favourite knit fabrics as its slightly heavier in weight to t-shirt jersey fabric but lighter than sweat shirting. Usually made from cotton, it is knitted with two distinct sides. Smooth short piles on the front and with the distinctive softloops on the interior of the fabric. It is usually a light to medium weight fabric and perfect for making sweatshirts, sweatpants, hoodies and loungewear. 

Not just for casual apparel though, as it can also be used to make dresses, skirts, cardigans and tops. It also has a lovely drape to it. 

It is also wonderful to sew with and handles really well. Highly recommend if you are new to sewing with any knit fabric as this is slightly more structured and much easier to handle.

This delicious fabric is called ‘French Terry – Horses’, a cream/antique white background with galloping stallion horses in shades of brown and I absolutely love it! I ordered 1.5 metres and decided to make one of my own designs…The Nell T-shirt dress (waist length option) which is just enough fabric for this style.

The Nell T-shirt Dress sewing pattern has a short sleeve, with scoop neckline and 4 length options. 

Obviously, I wanted my top to keep me warm for the colder months soI drafted these amazing gathered long sleeves with deeper cuffs instead. I also raised the neckline slightly to keep any draughts away.

 I love the newly drafted long sleeve and the raised neckline so much that I am going to launch an ‘add on pack’ to the Nell T-shirt Dress sewing pattern. Hopefully creating an all year-round sewing pattern with lots of different options.

One thing to remember though, French Terry does not stretch as much as a jersey knit so you need to take this into account if you are using it for your neck and cuff ribbing. I usually use an 85% calculation to measure my neckbands for jersey knits but I increased to 90% for this version.

I love how it has turned out and it looks amazing with my vintage jeans and chunky block heeled boots. It is super cosy and warm and perfect to see me through the autumn/winter seasons. 

Thanks so much for reading!

Jayne

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