Katherine's Fibre Mood Mabel Top

Well I must be the luckiest person around as the wonderful Katie asked me if I would do another blogpost using another one of her gorgeous fabrics, obviously I jumped at the chance! 

When discussing what fabrics I could use I suggested to Katie that I would like to try using a jersey fabric for a lovely spring sweatshirt. I had a browse and came across the stunning floral beauty that is the Floral Bouquet Cotton Brushed Loopback Sweatshirt Fabric in White. This came in two colour options but I wanted to go with the white version with the beautiful orange, pink and coral coloured flowers and the matching white ribbing.

So after choosing the fabric it was time to settle on a pattern for the project. I knew I wanted to make a sweatshirt that would be lovely for the spring and had seen the sleeved stunner of a sweatshirt that is the Mabel Top by Fibre Mood Patterns. The Mabel is a sweatshirt with a round neck, ¾ length sleeves with the most fabulous volume and the option to add a ruffle down the front.

Let’s discuss sizing and adjustments. So, I made my Mabel up in a Size M, the measurements for a Medium are Bust 92 – 96 cm Hip 100 – 103 cm. My measurements are Bust 92 cm and Hip 105 cm so I fit the size range for the bust and was slightly out for the hip but realised this didn’t matter much as it would sit above my hips. Fibre Mood patterns are very good at giving lots of details when it comes to final garment measurements and detailed the length from neck to hem would be 60.25 cm. I found this really useful being a petite sewist (I’m 5ft 0.5”!) and put this measurement against myself and realised that the sweatshirt would be longer than I would like. I then made the decision to remove 3 cm from the bodice and made no other adjustments to the pattern.

So onto the cutting out of this sweatshirt, I used the method of folding in the selvedges to cut out the bodice front and back using as little fabric as possible! However the sleeves are fabric hungry and I couldn’t use any fabric cutting tricks to save on fabric here! The pattern piece for the sleeves is so wide and this is for all the amazing fullness at the top and bottom of the sleeve.

I sewed the wonderful Floral Bouquet Brushed Loopback Sweatshirt fabric mostly on my overlocker. I used a Maraflex thread on my machine for the top stitching of the neckband and used my sewing machine for all the gathering too. It was a super speedy sew and only the gathering took a bit more time than a regular sweatshirt. The fabric was a dream to work with and easy to handle through the overlocker. I also love that Katie has a matching ribbing for this sweatshirt as I find it so hard to find matching ribbings to fabrics. The ribbing is a fantastic quality and stretches and recovers beautifully for the neckband, hem and cuffs too.

I had a lot of fun wearing this on our recent trip to the Isle of Wight and had a good giggle posing for photos on the ferry and my ever-patient wife being a wonderful photographer!

It is such a brilliant bright, colourful fabric to wear and a lovely modern take on a sweatshirt with the voluminous sleeves. I have also noticed that Katie stocks this print on a viscose base fabric which would be wonderful for lots of woven patterns for the summer.

It has been a joy to sew one of Sew Sew Sew’s beautiful fabrics again. Katie’s fabrics are always of such a wonderful quality and in such stunning prints and this is no exception to that rule.

Thank you once again Katie for asking me to blog for your wonderful fabric shop, it has been a complete pleasure and I will enjoy wearing my Mabel an awful lot this spring and summer.

Love Katherine x