I purchased this fabric on sale last year after the holiday had passed. It's an odd textile that is 100% cotton and feels like a brushed flannel, except that it is much heavier than the flannels that I have come across. It's also incredibly wide - I think it's about 90" wide. And I have no idea what it was originally intended for . . .
I thought it might make a nice holiday jumper, and I was curious to see how I liked Butterick 6955, so it seemed like a good pairing.
The design is a basic bodice and skirt with a standard facing. There is some top-stitching involved, and I suppose the most interesting thing about the pattern are the ties that are stitched into the side seams that wrap from the front bodice to the back and close with a buckle.
The fabric itself was incredibly easy to work with and didn't fray much at all. Even so, I did bind raw edges with seam binding, and I did add a fusible interfacing to the facing pieces.
The armholes were finished with bias strips as suggested by the pattern, which worked fine.
I had very little of my matching thread left, so I did construct things in a different order than suggested by the given instructions so that I could save my topstitching thread until I absolutely needed it. I didn't want the armholes to stretch out, so adding the bias strip early on seemed like a wise decision.
One thing that surprised me was the length of the skirt. It is quite long, given the pattern illustration. The suggested hem was 3" but that was going to be a pain to deal with considering my thicker fabric choice. In the end, I cut off 5" from the bottom of the skirt and used it as a facing piece. Because the wrong side of the fabric is white, this ended up being a happy accident. The faced hemline turned out much better than it would have with a simple folded up hem.
As for the buckle, I didn't have anything that I like stashed away that would fit the ties as drafted. I ended up purchasing two brass buckles that were 2" wide to decided which shape I preferred. The oval shape won out, and I covered it with a bias strip of self-fabric. I used to do this a lot to make a covered buckle, and I think that it adds a nice texture as opposed to the standard covered buckle kits.
The fabric does wrinkle a bit more than I like, so it may not have been the perfect choice for this pattern, but it certainly is a comfortable garment to wear.
I'm not completely sold on the design, but if I find another fabric that is suitable, I might have to make myself another version.
The 90" wide + heavy brushed flannel sounds like bedding: sheets, duvet covers, etc. That may be what the manufacturer was intending. You've managed to make it pretty!
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