Alicanta Knits

I’ve had this stretch velvet for-e-ver and was terrified of using it with my old and very basic sewing machine. I didn’t trust that it would be able to sew this type of fabric, but it did! And it was easier than expected. I wanted to use the velvet for a simple dress, this is what I did… I decided to draft my own pattern using a skirt and shirt as templates. For the skirt portion, I folded the butcher paper in half, folded the skirt in half and placed it on the paper (not pictured). I made three marks (small white dots in first picture). The first at the end of the waist, past the hip. The second, on the fold line of the paper, right in the middle of the waist. The third mark for the bottom hem, about 9 inches above the hem line of the skirt. Then I drew a line from the waist mark on the fold to the mark outer hip mark and a second line from this point to the mark of the bottom hem.       To make the bottom even, I measured the length of the side and then replicated that length by mark