How to Use Border Print Fabric for Fashion Garments

Border print fabric makes fashion garments dynamic. Skillful seamstresses incorporate border prints into waistlines, hemlines, shirt collars and cuffs. Placing a border print cleverly gives your garment a seamless, professional polish that you can't replicate by combining fabrics. Sari fabrics often contain beautiful printed borders, as do many cottons and linens. Border print fabrics are frequently grouped together in fabric stores. Let them spark your creativity and inspire a fresh design.

Things You'll Need

• Fashion garment pattern
• Border print fabric
• Scissors
• Sewing machine
• Thread

Instructions

1. Decide whether to use the border print for your garment's cuffs, waistline, hemline, collar or in multiple locations. Choose a simple pattern such as an elastic skirt if you have not worked with border prints before, placing the border print along the hemline. Think creatively about your use of the border print if you are a more advanced sewer. Consider adding pockets, a belt, or a cowgirl yoke using the border print. Make the border print the spotlight of a long dress or full-length jacket by using it solely at the hemline. Give boat pants a sassy twist with border printed cuffs.

2. Cut out the pattern pieces and place them on the border print fabric carefully. Do not include any of the border printed portion in sections of the garment that do not require it. Make sure to place the pattern pieces that will contain the border print so that the print is upright, as a crooked border print will look sloppy.

3. Cut the fabric pieces and sew them according to your garment's specifications, being sure to match the border print pieces perfectly along cuffs, waistlines and hemlines for a neat finish.

Tips & Warnings

• Buy more yardage of the border print fabric for your project than the pattern recommends, as placing the pattern pieces carefully may take up more space than the pattern has calculated.

References

• "Clotilde's Sew Smart," Clotilde Lampe, 2004.
• The Sewing Lawyer: What to Do With a Border Print
• Jinny Beyer Studio: Be Careful Cutting Borders!

Resources

• Threads Magazine: Pleated Flowing Skirt - Purple Border Print
• Sewgirls.com: Border print on full skirt?
• Dicey-Home: A Glossary of Useful Sewing Terms
• Diary of a Sewing Fanatic: 60s Mod Border Print Dress