Philadelphia's Fabric Row

My work takes me back to Philadelphia (which I called home for several years) regularly if not frequently. At least every three months I head down, see my friends at the office, and check in with old friends that I made while I was living in the City of Brotherly Love. There are also a few shopping trips I try to make while I'm back in my old stomping ground, and with the exception of the occasional grocery from the Reading Terminal Market, I find that almost all of my "must haves" are on 4th street just south of South street. Of course, the House of Tea is on my to-do list, but for sheer "I'm going to get in a ton of trouble now" you can't beat Fabric Row.

The basics of cutting out a pattern

Cutting out your pattern is the first step towards having a nice finished piece, and like any first step, it's important that you get it right, otherwise you've wasted your money on that fabric! In your pattern's envelope will be the pattern pieces (generally these are printed on very lightweight paper, like an onionskin), and there will also be a couple of instruction pages (usually printed on newsprint).

Cutting out a pattern requires patience and a large, flat workspace. You will be working with huge pieces, and there will be lots of "adjusting" that will have to happen before you cut. Here's how you do it!

Instructions

Pattern Pieces

Take the instructions out and find page 1. This will have pictures of the various finished pieces that can be made from the the pattern, a listing of all of the pattern pieces that are in the envelope, general directions (for things like seam allowances), and the Cutting Layouts.

Fabric and You

So now that you've found the pattern you want to make, you're going to need to find the fabric to make it out of. Fabric shopping is one of my favorite parts of making a pattern because it's all about possibility and customization. For a first effort, I highly recommend sticking with light- to medium-weight cottons, as other fabrics will have peculiarities to them that will make them difficult for a novice to lay out, cut, and sew.

Note before continuing: On this blog, I will try to avoid using the term "Pattern" to describe the design or print on a bolt of fabric, and reserve the word "Pattern" to only mean the instructions and template for an item of clothing. So when I say "check the pattern," I mean the paper envelope with the clothing recipe you want to make, not the particular print of the fabric.