Here is the finished jumper with the nap running upwards: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128353028@N04/15215509103/in/pool-oliverands
I like the look very much. It’s rather like looking into velvet when the nap is up like this. You’re looking down into the grove of plushies. Used nap down, as you would naturally do, light reflects off the plushies, so the color appears lighter. However, I do not really like the rough feel when you smooth this fabric downwards. I guess it’s a compromise. However, I certainly do like this look!
Funny story about this fabric. I bought it about 40 years ago and had cut out a very similar jumper for myself. It languished in a box for all that time. It moved with me 5 times and through 3 states. It lived inside a plastic bag in a cardboard box in the attic for years. When I thought of it for this project (not such a long memory, I recently unpacked a lot of stuff), I looked to see if there was enough fabric. Sure enough, I could get the much smaller bodice piece, even positioned upside-down, to reverse the nap, within the bodice I had originally cut. And the skirt pieces were almost exactly the right size just as they were. So, all looked rosy — until I accidentally cut the back bodice pieces out of the front bodice. This meant that I had to put a seam down the front bodice in the new jumper. Duh! (But you can hardly see it. Whew!)
I worked in a fabric store in 1972, my first job after high school. I am using several of those fabrics now to make little Oliver + S clothes out of. Who knew? Who could even imagine?!
