100% Organic Cotton Jersey – no elastane!

Happy International Sewing Community Day! This lovely celebration has been created by Hattie Van Der Krohn and Athina Kakou. It is to salute this wonderful International Sewing Community and create a special occasion where we can celebrate the wonderful online and real-life relationships of sewists worldwide!

As a part of this day, Hattie and Athina have been encouraging everyone to make a party outfit to join in with their virtual party around the world. I didn’t make the skirt in this outfit, it is this skirt from Palava that I have owned for years, but I did make the top.

This top, even though it’s a quick jersey sew, is really special to me. I fell in love with US mid-century artist Charley Harper‘s work several years ago whilst researching a trip to visit the Pacific Northwest. Not long after discovering his amazing artistic style, it was announced that his estate would be collaborating with Birch Fabrics, an organic fabric company I already admired – a match made in heaven! Despite admiring the fabric collections and drooling over them each time a new collection was released, they were always too expensive for me. Being printed on an organic base automatically adds to the cost and presumably due to import taxes they are far more expensive to buy in the UK than in the US. Just recently, I managed to get this fabric with a voucher code I was sent and I have been over the moon since!

This top is a Jennifer Lauren Handmade Gable Top made with the ‘Main’ organic cotton interlock from the western birds collection. I made it a couple of weeks ago and as usual for the Gable Top I am finding it a really versatile make – I’ve worn it casually with jeans, under my Cleos and paired it with skirts and some lipstick for a party feel! Perfect for our virtual #iscd2018 party!

I chose to make the Gable Top for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I knew I could squeeze a short sleeved version out of just 1m – as it’s expensive fabric this was important! Especially as knit fabrics are usually 140-150cm wide and this fabric is only 110cm wide, I really needed a pattern that doesn’t use much fabric! The second reason I chose the Gable is that it doesn’t have a neckband, this cotton interlock fabric is lovely and thick and soft, it would be absolutely perfect for baby clothes, the downside is that it is 100% organic cotton – no lycra/elastane content. This means that the stretch in the fabric comes from how it is mechanically knitted together, there is no lycra to spring back leaving the fabric with not-so-great recovery. This works fine for the body of the top but would be rubbish for things like neckbands/waistbands/cuffs etc. As I wanted to be careful that the top wouldn’t stretch out during wearing I made sure to put some clear elastic in the shoulder seams. So far so good, I’ve not had any problems with stretching out yet!

I can’t wait to see what other’s make for International Sewing Community Day! I would to use today as an excuse to get to know my lovely readers so I would love you to leave a comment telling me how did you discover the online sewing community? Was it a blog? If so, whose blog? Instgram? Which Instagram feed got you hooked? Or was it Facebook? I’d love to hear from you! I first discovered the online sewing community reading blogs – I discovered A Million Dresses and Dolly Clackett in around 2014 and they are still two of my favourite Instagrammers now!