I have been given the lovely task / challenge of making a dress for a friend’s little daughter (1 year old) – using African wax cloth, which is rather stiff! I was hoping that the Building Block Dress book, which I have just bought and received, would give me some good ideas, but it doesn’t (at first read) talk very much about how to match up your pattern with your cloth. Any suggestions on what sort of thing I can try out with this rather stiff cloth? It’s really vibrant and patterned, very lovely, but not the usual drapey or light stuff that you might expect to make a very young child’s dress out of. The material as supplied is actually already turned into a simple elasticated adult skirt (so it’s not so stiff that a grownup wouldn’t wear it :-)).
Generally speaking I would love any hints on how to match a pattern to a fabric, or vice-versa. For instance I have just finished a pair of loose harem-style trousers (Burda 7400). The pattern calls for linen or jersey and doesn’t specify anything about the fabric weight – it came in a kit and the supplied linen is quite heavy-weight. It falls very nicely and I’m very pleased, but I am now not entirely sure what to look for if I buy some jersey to make another version with. Do I try to look for heavy-weight jersey or will a dressweight jersey be ok, I wonder?
