Fabric for Fashion: The Swatch Book, Second Edition

Product Information

The law of fabric: the more fabric you touch, the better you understand what fabric is and how to work with it. The possibilities are off course endless, but it highly depends on your needs. here are a few ideas to inspire your own system. A handy tip to help against fraying and curling edges, add a strip of tape before you cut out your swatch.This is particularly helpful if you are working with knits.

Firstly there are a few key pieces of information you want to include. These are basic things that will go a long way to keeping your fabric swatch book tidy, easy to use and helpful for future projects. As someone who has collected my own little mountain of swatches over time, I know that they need some help in the organization department.

Fibre content and breakdown – 100% cotton, 45% polyester etc ( ask the vendor or look at the label for this information) The easiest source of swatches is what you already have. Whatever fabric you’re using, save a scrap for the future. You can do this with every fabric you sew. If you already own a piece of fabric, or you've already used it up for a project, it's still smart to save a swatch of your fabric. You can use it as a reference for future projects or when you're looking for similar qualities online. How do you obtain fabric swatches from (online)stores?

For now, the most important info is the name of the fabric (i.e. ponte, denim, challis, double knit etc.) and the fiber content (i.e. 100% wool, 95% cotton/5% spandex etc.). specialty knits, poly knits, cottons I like to use a rotary cutter fitted with a pinking blade here. This will keep the edges from fraying on you. 2. Print out the Fabric Swatch Book Template It depends on the shop. Most fabrics watches I've bought online were around 5 x 5 cm / 2" x 2", But when I bought wholesale would often receive larger fabric swatches up to a4 / letter size. However, if I'm cutting into a new piece of fabric I mostly cut off a small sliver of fabric to avoid cutting into the fabric too much. You can grab it when you sign up for the Elizabeth Made This newsletter. Making your DIY Fabric Swatch book 1. Cut your swatches Another option would be to use an accordion file folder / expanding file organizer to hold the paper with swatches.Fabric swatches are a cheap or free way for you to get your hands on a veritable mountain of fabric!

A swatch library or a fabric swatch book is where you catalogue your fabric swatches and write down the details of a certain fabric for future reference. Why create a swatch book? This is also great if you are looking for fabrics to compliment each other from colours to tectures to designs. You can have a swatch in your book and take it to compare alongside other fabrics. Details To Include In Your Fabric Swatch Book I share it with this caveat: It’s my opinion that this book is maybe not the most helpful for someone starting out sewing. I say that because it’s #1 more expensive than most sewing books. #2 The designer fashion pictures in the book might not be the most relatable for someone just starting out sewing. #3 There’s also not a lot of helpful sewing information particular to those fabrics. For this project, you’ll need the Fabric Swatch Book Template. I just added it to the Resource Library. I’ve taken a couple of classes from Sarah Veblen on Patternreview. One is Understanding Knits and another that’s she’s not currently teaching on sheer fabrics. In each of those, there’s a kit of swatches for the class.

Type of fabric (batiste, poplin, denim, gingham, tweed, jacquard, boucle, voile, double gauze, taffeta, etc.)

When you have a collection of swatches you can thumb through them. As you feel them, you really begin to understand how each fabric might behave in the real world. You want to know how a polyester ponte is different than a ponte with rayon and polyester? That’s where you need swatches. I promised I’d share a done-for-you option in case the idea of making your own fabric swatch book is not your cup of tea. After that, print out as many copies of the Fabric Swatch Book Template as you like. I did 10 for this first batch which will hold 50 swatches. 3. Label and organize your swatches

Proven Capability

Before we get into making your own DIY fabric swatch book, let’s talk about how to collect a good set of swatches. How to collect fabric swatches Having a compiled fabric swatch book can help you choose a fabric or compare fabrics from your book to ones you wish to buy to get a good match. This is a fantastic reference book. It has swatches in categories of fabric. It’s quite comprehensive, and there’s text explaining each fabric. But once you have all these fabric swatches, how do you store and organize them? In a fabric swatch library or a fabric swatch book!