Do you ever think about what inspires you? I had been looking forward to trying Lyn Week’s “Frannie” pattern for some time, but approaching it the same way I do most dresses, frankly, seemed like a lost opportunity. “Frannie” inspired me to do something a little diff erent. Both the simplicity of the silhouette and the vintage quality of the design led me to Liberty lawns, but once I tried to narrow down my selection to one print, I found I couldn’t do it. Instead, I picked a few of my favorites and used piping to tie them together. After spending a good bit of time mixing, matching and coordinating fabrics, I realized that combining prints can present a challenge even for a seasoned sewer like myself; so, the teacher in me came up with some print pointers based on my “Frannie” project:

• Pay attention to balance and scale; you don’t want the garment to wear the child.

• Picture the dress in your head. If you pick all very small prints there will be no interest or contrast; whereas, three large prints would be overwhelming. You need to combine small, medium and large prints for interest and use piping to tie everything together.

• You also need a combination of colors. I used a light, medium and dark shade. In my experience, the light color generally works best next to the face, but that’s not a hard and fast rule. One of my students used dark next to the face because of the density of her print -- a green fabric with rosebuds. She then balanced the darker color at the top by selecting strong prints for the bottom two sections.

• If your pattern has a collar, make it a solid, preferably white or off -white. A
patterned collar would be over-kill.

• Coordinate the slip and dress by repeating the use of a particular edging trim, lace or piping around the bottom. When your little one is sitting down, the inside of her ensemble will be just as pretty as the outside.

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Martha Demere lives in Montgomery, Alabama and has been a longtime contributor to Sew Beautiful. Martha has studied embroidery technique here and abroad, and graduated with distinction from The Royal School of Needlework in London,
England. She has also completed several classes at Lesage in France. Her three children are almost grown and gone, but she looks forward to a time when her days are filled with sewing for grandchildren. Her hope chest is already filled with more than a dozen outfits with many more to come. Martha also continues to teach weekly heirloom sewing classes at The First United Methodist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

The print combinations shown on the sample dresses are not overtly dressy, but are certainly suitable for church and other social occasions. One of my favorites is this green and blue dress with eyelet collar. I cut the collar from the high roll pattern included in “Frannie,” but I drew an eyelet edge and embroidered it by hand with a tiny blanket-stitched, scalloped edge using matching blue thread to coordinate with the dress fabric. To coordinate the slip I found a darling green blue flowerbud edging, while this is no longer available, a similar look could be reproduced using machine embroidery. The point is to find something that will tie into your color scheme. The crossover smocking plate is “Mackenzie” #704 from Creative Keepsakes. Any geometric of your liking will do. You can even make one up, as I did on the second version shown in yellow and blue.
The selection of swatches below represents the various print combinations chosen by my beginning sewing students for their “Frannie” projects. The fabrics are Liberty of London Lawn and Bear Threads prints and most are available from Beth’s Heirloom in Wetumpka, Alabama