Not long after this fabric arrived I allocated it to this pattern. It's a rather small piece of minky and I loved the design, which is why I bought it from Blended Thread along with some other pieces. The fabric itself feels very soft and is very floppy, it's quite cozy. And of course, it has nap.
It's been a long time since I made this pattern (here.) So long that I lost my pattern pieces, which is rare for me. I really loved the fit the first time around but I still found it oddly useless in my wardrobe and it didn't stay around.
So, reprinting etc later. I was really committed to this fabric for this pattern despite knowing it would be a serious tetris game. I didn't really know how the minky would sew up either. The new modified pattern has new, modified sizing, and I went with a size 2, as the bust is correct and I thought the waist measurement would be a bit irrelevant.
It was a serious tetris game, and I lost - I decided to just use the rainbow selvedge edge on the hem, which a friend of mine has done on a different project recently. I wasn't sure I like it as a design feature, but you know, live and learn.
The real story here is that minky is horrible to sew. It's like velvet but with higher pile. Simply sewing two pieces together, they try to shear away from each other, as velvet does, but the real tragedy came when sewing the folded over pieces like the neckband, cuffs and hem. The pile doesn't like being folded in half and so it would squirrel away from itself. On the hem I had learned, and basted the hem together. The cuffs were a pain. This is a problem that continues post sewing: the neckband and hem don't want to be folded, so they kind of mush up and slide around.
I ended up really not liking this fit for this fabric. I debated cropping the top, as when it was shorter it hung more loosely and that was both more flattering and suited the fabric more, but because of the annoying shiftiness of the bands, I decided to give it to a friend along with a shipment of winter clothing, so hopefully she will like it as is! Her hips are a touch narrower than mine too so overall it will hang more nicely on her.
I have had mixed feelings about my Blended Threads fabrics - none of them have been quality I would buy again, and this is also the case here. I didn't find the minky fun to work with and it's polyester feel makes me think it wouldn't be nice in most clothing other than maybe vests or jackets. I have not seen much fading of the prints on the Blended thread fabrics, but the best of the lot was the bamboo spandex.
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