Making Loungewear with FabMo Fabric - Part 1 Winter Booties
By Melissa Lin
My favorite thing to wear at home is loungewear. Most of my loungewear consists of scruffy sweats, faded shirts and beat up slippers. It was time for a serious upgrade. At FabMo, I found a huge roll of plaid, knit fabric begging to be made into loungewear.
I picked up McCalls M7061 for this project because I could see myself hunkering down and binge watching Netflix in the hoodie dress with matching booties.
This month, I focused on the booties. My favorite pair of winter slippers had holes in the soles that were beyond repair. I knew these fleece lined booties would keep my feet toasty warm this winter.
The Pattern
Instructions for these booties were straight forward. Basically, I made the bootie 4 times - twice with the knit fabric and twice with the fleece fabric. With right sides together, I placed the fleece lining into a knit boot and sewed around the top.
Then I turned it right side out through an opening of the lining.
I finished the booties by hand stitching the lining closed.
For the soles, I used some scrap ultrasuede in my stash knowing the fabric wouldn’t slip on my hardwood floors.
If you don’t have ultra suede, you can use any fabric and make them non skid with the help of some puffy fabric paint. Apply the paint on the fabric, let it dry, and now you have grippy fabric. Check out Tulip Color’s blog for some puffy paint design ideas.
Tips for Sewing with Knits
I used to have a love/hate relationship with knits. I loved wearing knit garments, but I hated sewing with knit fabrics. When I was a newbie sewer, I naively assumed knits would sew just like woven fabric. I found out the hard way that knit fabrics can stretch when moved by the sewing machine’s feed dogs, resulting in wonky, wavy seams.
Here are some tips I used to prevent warped seams:
Sew seams with tissue paper. Tissue paper acts as a stabilizer and prevents the knit fabric from stretching when going through the machine. I sandwiched the fabric with 1” strips of paper and sewed right over it. Removing the tissue paper was easy as the needle perforated the paper.
Use clips to hold fabric together. My old, dull pins were pushing the fabric out of shape instead of sliding through it. To prevent any fabric distortions, I used my handy clips to hold the fabric and tissue paper in place.
Use a ball point needle. The rounded tip on a ball point needle allows the needle to pass between the loops of fabric threads. Regular needles tend to pierce through the fibers.
Final Thoughts
Making winter booties is a great stash busting project as it doesn’t require much yardage. These warm and comfy booties can be whipped up in one afternoon. I’m thinking of making a bunch of these as gifts next Christmas.
Don’t feel like buying a pattern? Check out some of these free bootie patterns:
Snuggly Slipper Boots by Tilly and the Buttons
Lace Up Fur Boots by So-Sew-Easy
Next month, I’ll show you the hoodie dress. Stay tuned!