Wherever Jacket

Today’s the first official day of the Stitch Savvy blog tour!  I am delighted to let me friends take over most of the reveals and inside peeks on the book, and while they do, I’m going to take the chance to share with you some of the garments that didn’t make the pages!

As I was working on the patterns and designs for Stitch Savvy, I had such fun–I mean, really almost unnatural amounts of fun–picking out and investing in the fabrics I used to bring these projects to light.  When I wrote Stitch by Stitch, I used fabrics that I had on hand or that were very popular at the time, and didn’t really give much thought to how they would photograph or even (I know, it’s shameful) to how they would show off a particular project.  The ones that I chose because I just loved the fabric and wanted to use it–like Bari J’s fabric on the pillow that’s featured on the back cover of Stitch by Stitch–were the ones that got the biggest reaction and most compliments, and I learned something from that: choose the things that YOU love best, and they’ll show off the prettiest and brightest, because that’s where you will have put your heart and time and energy, as well.

So with Stitch Savvy, I worked hard to choose fabrics that I loooooved, for the reasons above and also because I learned after the first book that all these samples COME HOME, so if I made one in fabrics I wouldn’t ordinarily choose, thinking that someone else would like it and I should play to their tastes, I was just going to end up getting it back later–and not knowing what to do with it.  These fabrics are ones I wanted to have and to wear and to use over and over.

That also meant I had a hard time editing the fabrics down, because I did love all of them so much.  Which means that when it came time to photograph the projects for the book, I had two or three (and sometimes four) photo-worthy samples for each project.  It was a LOT of sewing.  Not all of them could be featured in the book’s pages, but I can show them off now!

Today on the blog tour, Amber of One Shabby Chick, one of the most talented and warm and aesthetically-minded bloggers I know, is sharing her impressions of Stitch Savvy.  And I’m sharing with you the Wherever Jacket, one of the five women’s garment patterns featured in the book.  I wanted a great unlined jacket that could be dressed up or down and could be made in a variety of fabrics to suit every season–there are two in the book, and then this third to share with you today!

Check out Amber’s blog and see her amazing sewing while you’re there reading about Stitch Savvy–she’s tremendously gifted at the machine and has the best eye for putting fabrics together and making what could be a simple project–like a camera strap or a zippered pouch–become something lovely to treasure through her stitching.  See the rest of the stops on the blog tour in the coming two weeks, and I hope you love every glimpse these talented bloggers give you!