Wednesday, October 21, 2015

A Peek at my Stash: French terry

Unless you've been under a rock, you've probably noticed French terry eeeeeeeverywhere lately. It seems like this once hard to find fabric is finally making its way into more shops. I've been hoarding different cuts of it, and I'm itching to have an entire closet of warm, snuggly sweatshirts.


In case you're not familiar with French terry, it's basically like any other good ole knit fabric. It has a smooth, regular knit side and a loopy back side. Some terrys are called "double terry" or "towel terry" and they have loops on both sides (y'know, like a bath towel). It's similar to sweatshirt fleece, the only difference being that on sweatshirt fleece, the loops are cut, creating a "pile" or "fleecy" surface. French terry is almost always a natural fiber like cotton or bamboo, often mixed with spandex or a little polyester for stability. The loops generally ensure that it's plush and thick. No wispy paper-thin jerseys here!

So how about a few stats on my FT stash?

Number of cuts: 9

Amount of yardage: About 11 yards!

Oldest cut: I believe it's the white bamboo, probably 3 1/2 years old, making it one of the first fabrics I ever ordered!

All have a purpose?: Mostly!

Number of "what was I thinking??" cuts: Zero!

Wow...until I lined them all up, I didn't realize quite how much I had! Isn't it always the way? And I didn't even pull out the navy scraps I used last year for my Hudson Pants. The white cuts are partial yardage that I've had for ages. I've used them for cloth diapers, nursing pads, cloth wipes...they're the gift that keeps on giving. The grey one is set aside to recreate one of my favorite RTW skirts (yes, you read that right, a French terry skirt!).



You can see a lot of other solid neutrals. I plan on sewing a bunch of sweatshirts with fun details, to keep it interesting. Pinterest has given me a lot of good ideas. 


And of course, when a fabric becomes more wide-spread, you get a chance at fun prints, like this floral from Raspberry Creek Fabrics on Etsy (side note, Etsy seems to have a crapton of cute printed French terry).


I'm not much of a floral person, but I thought I'd take a chance on this one and see how I like it. Worst comes to worst, it will make something cute for one of my daughters.

But I've saved the very best for last.


I can post now, because I received my order, and I'm no longer worried about it selling out...this is wool. Wool French terry. Striped wool French terry!!!!! From Mood. Dying. And it is SO soft too. It's hard to tell from the photo (and IRL if I'm being honest) but the darker color is navy, not black. This is one of those fabrics that makes me get project paralysis; it's so perfect I don't want to screw it up. Hopefully with a few sweatshirts under my belt I'll settle on the best use of this most delicious fabric. I already have the Fraser Sweatshirt from Sewaholic traced and ready to go!

Do you have any French terry in your stash?

2 comments:

  1. Which one will you use for the Fraser? I have one piece of FT from a GC Knitfix.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Noup, no French terry (I think ) in my stash, but now I feel like I need some! :D love the floral print and I didn't even know they make them out of wool! Sounds divine!

    ReplyDelete

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