Rifle Paper Co. Border Print B6453

I can’t lie, I’m totally and unoriginally in love with Rifle Paper Co. I don’t have any stationary or anything, but every single fabric collection they’ve done with Cotton & Steel so far, I’ve been completely obsessed with at least one of the prints (often the florals). When I saw the English Garden pre-order go up at the workroom, the border print included in the collection made me gasp and it was love at first sight. I knew exactly what I wanted to use it for: another B6453. I SWEAR I’m going on hiatus with this pattern now, but I just couldn’t resist one last one. I think it’s such a great pattern to showcase beautiful huge prints, and one of the samples on the envelope even uses a border print. Plus, since I’ve sewn it a bunch now, I knew 1) that it would fit great, and 2) that the skirt is giant rectangles so I could use a border print without any modifications.

I’d actually never used a border print before. I’ve wanted to try it for a while, because I always really like seeing them in other people’s projects, but all the border prints I come across seem to either be incredibly kitschy or borders on BOTH selvages. Why do fabric companies do this? Same with ombre fabrics. Why would anyone want a fabric that has an ombre that goes to the middle and then back again? Or borders that have restricted blank space between them so you can’t really use them on clothes? I realize that borders that are on both sides are likely intended for quilters to use as borders on quilts, but come on. Throw us garment sewers a bone! Thankfully, Rifle Paper Co./Cotton & Steel know what’s up and made this GLORIOUS border print. It has birds! And beautiful flowers and branches! And metallic gold accents and little gold dots that spread up across the dress in increasing sparseness.

Even though I’ve made this dress for myself a few times now, I made one more tweak to this one before cutting out the pieces. I added 1/4″ to the side seam edge of each front and back side pieces so that overall it would be 1″ bigger in the waist. The other versions fit, but they were definitively not hamburger eating dresses. Or pizza eating dresses. I need room for snacking and feasting without feeling constrained, so the extra inch did the trick. It’s also a lot more comfortable when you’re sitting, because honestly who doesn’t have at least a teeny bit more pooch when you are sitting vs standing?

I really like how simple the dress is on the top. It’s definitely party on the bottom, business on top. (That sounds uncomfortably backwards as a phrase, but it’s the truth.) I finished it on Thursday morning and wore it out that afternoon/evening, and it’s kind of funny – the little gold specks on the bodice keep catching the corner of my eye and I instinctively try to brush it off, haha. I just need to adjust to having such a subtle sprinkle!

I really love the scoop back of this dress. I’m noticing drag lines a bit in this photo, but when I’m wearing it it doesn’t feel tight or anything in the back, so I think it just must have been whatever I was doing while taking photos (there was twirling involved in between shots). As well, I had lofty ambitions of pattern matching across the border, but that skirt is soooo full and the repeat on the print is quite wide, so I had no hope in hell of managing it. So it’s matched on one side seam and nowhere else – if I’d planned ahead, I would’ve aimed for centre back as my only seam, but TOO LATE. No one can tell if any of it’s matched anyway, it’s way too full and swishy.

I JUST LOVE THIS PRINT. Revel in it. Bask in the beautiful trees and night-time goodness of the background colour. The little gold specks honestly make me think of little fireflies flitting among the flowers blooming at night. And the birds are so whimsical and peaceful! This is a quilting cotton, by the way. I pre-washed it and dried it, and it’s so soft and has a really nice weight, so it’s not as garment-adverse as I’d usually say a quilting cotton would be. This pattern works well with quilting cotton, but I think you could probably get away with it in other garment situations as well without it being too stiff/structured.

You may notice that the hem of the skirt has a good amount of body (or maybe you didn’t and are now scrolling back to examine it). That’s because I left the selvage on the fabric! The pattern calls for you to turn up 3/4″ total (double fold 3/8″), but because of the selvage print I turned up 1″ total and then tucked the white edge back into the hem as you can see below. I really like this hidden detail, since the Rifle Paper Co. selvages are always beautiful. This one’s even gold metallic!

(I really want a macro lens for my camera. I’ve just been using the kit lens but I have this strange instinct to always want to be really close to things when I photograph them. Or at least have part of the image be really close. Not even just clothes. When I was travelling I kept wanting rocks and grass really near to my lens and my camera couldn’t focus, just like it’s having trouble focussing on the selvage above. So. Camera goals for future.)

Also, I noticed a couple people lately saying how helpful it is when people put their measurements and the size they made in discussions of patterns, so here’s my info! I’m 5’4″ and 36.5″/29.5″/38.5″ and I made a size 12 in this pattern, then raised the waist by 1″ and added 1″ to the waist dimensions (1/2″ at each side seam as noted above).

Does anyone else have this print? I think it was the most popular one in the pre-sale at the workroom, and might even have sold out in pre-order. What are you planning to make with it?! I wanna seeeee. Or just hear, if you haven’t cut into it yet. 🙂