Making Butterick 6948

Making Butterick 6948 is what I did for one of my latest Minerva Fabrics projects. This is one of those wardrobe patterns where you can make several garments from one pattern. For this project. I only focused on the jacket.

The Fabric

This Minerva Exclusive Organic Cotton Twill is a stunning print. It’s called Parading Palms and the more technical name of the fabric is tencel lyocell twill in medium weight. There’s no stretch in the fabric.

Minerva Exclusive Organic Cotton Twill Parading Palms

This fabric is soft and has great drape. It would be perfect for something like palazzo pants, skirts, or jackets. I’m a Minerva Brand Ambassador so this was gifted to me.

The Pattern

I chose to use Butterick 6948 because I like the trench-style jacket look for this print. Also, because the design of the pattern is relatively simple, it’s perfect for a bold, large print.

I chose to make View A, which is the shorter jacket with sleeves. It’s described as an unlined jacket with matching belt carriers button epaulettes and side seam pockets. I did not add the button epaulettes since I didn’t have the type of buttons I wanted for them. But with this print, they really aren’t missed.

One thing I found interesting about this pattern is that it instructs you to interface the entire front facing. That’s quite a lot. I did it only because with the drape of this material, it probably wouldn’t hold it’s shape without it. But, if I were to make this pattern again from a stiffer fabric (one with less drape), most likely the wholly interfaced front facing would not be necessary.

No alterations were needed to the pattern in regards to the fit.

The Fabric For Making Butterick 6948

This lyocell twill washes and dries great! Something I always do is wash my fabrics before I use them. That way I’m assured that once the garment is made, it’s clean AND I won’t have to worry about it shrinking.

Conclusion

Overall, the pattern is easy to make. I only made this one item from the pattern, but this was certainly not difficult. I do love taking a straightforward designed patten and using it to make something stunning and/or unexpected. That’s an easy way to elevate your wardrobe and a sewing pattern.

I Used Two Patterns To Make One Dress

For my latest Minerva project, I used two patterns to make one dress. I took the dress portion from one and added the sleeves from the other.

Pattern envelopes — Vogue 8847 & Butterick 6446

The Fabric

For this project, I was gifted this very nice, lightweight fabric. It’s called John Kaldor soft crepe and it’s 100% polyester. The fabric has a gorgeous drape and is very soft like the name says.

This fabric washes and dries really well. I love the vibrant print of it as well. It’s perfect for summer!

The Patterns

I’ve had both of these patterns since around 2012 and 2015. I l For this particular look, I wanted a bell-shaped, flowy sleeve. As the heat and humidity rises when we get into summer, there was no way I was going to make a long-sleeve dress.

The Dress

The Very Easy Vogue pattern is quite easy and quick to sew. While it wasn’t really necessary, I did pay attention to the direction of the fabric when I laid out the pattern. It’s a very loose fitting dress with gathers in the back and front yokes. There are no buttons or zippers, so you can simply pull it over your head.

The dress has inseam pockets too!

woman wearing yellow floral dress with her hands in pockets

Because the dress is very loose, the belt really helps to cinch in the waist. By the way, there were no issues with adding sleeves in from a different patten. The sleeves from the Butterick pattern fit perfectly into the Vogue dress.

Conclusion

While I am a little bit concerned about how comfortable the dress will be when the weather gets hot, I think it will be fine to wear. I am always cold in the summer when I’m indoors and the air conditioning is blasting!

I am so glad I used two patterns to make one dress. The end result is just what I had in mind.

If you’d like te see the video of this project, you can view that here.

Latest Minerva Project – Sewing Faux Leather

My latest Minerva project – sewing faux leather was challenging but fun to work on. There’s a lot to keep in mind when using this fabric, so that’s some of what I want to touch on in this post. I was gifted the Minerva faux leather as a Minerva brand ambassador.

Here is the post I wrote for the Minerva website.

*This post does contain affiliate links.

The Fabric

The name of this fabric is Minerva Core Range Soft Supple Stretch Faux Leather. You can check it out here. It really is soft and supple and there is enough stretch to make your garments very comfortable.

Minerva faux leather in Cornflower blue

This is a fabric I didn’t prewash like I do for every other one. Shrinkage of faux leather shouldn’t be an issue. Machine washing in cold water, then hanging to dry should work well to care for the garment.

The Pattern

BurdaStyle magazine 03/2019 #107

Above is a picture of the pattern I used for the jacket. It’s a biker jacket from 2019. I find that BurdaStyle magazine patterns are trendy but often timeless. That’s a good thing, because it can be quite an undertaking to trace the patterns from the pattern sheets in order to sew them up! This faux leather jacket is actually the second time I’ve used this pattern. Here is the post I wrote back in 2019.

Sewing Faux Leather

For the actual construction of the garment, I used a #12 jersey needle. Although some say to use a jean needle, I felt that this would be too large a hole in the fabric. The jersey needle worked out great! Sewing this is not like going through denim. The stitch length I used most often is 3.0, then topstitching was done at 3.5-4.0 stitch length.

I used a 1/2″ seam allowance which gave me more room and was what I needed (even though I allowed for 5/8″ seam allowance in my pattern). I added a FBA (full bust adjustment) in the muslin I had made for the previous jacket. I’m glad I saved that, which made making this latest Minerva project sewing faux leather much easier.

Clips are great for holding the fabric pieces together. Not putting too many pin holes in the garment is important.

I made the lining from two remnant pieces I had on hand. Having something fun inside a coat or jacket can really brighten your day.

Overall

Sewing faux leather is easy. You just have to keep a few things in mind. The only downside is that you won’t get a nice, crisp pressed garment. But you certainly get get an awesome garment!