Zenith & Quasar Designs - Pi Fabric Strike Off

I was chosen to sew a strike off for Zenith & Quasar Designs. I received the pi fabric. This fabric is available for preorder from June 1 to June 15 for $18 per yard at zenithandquasar.com This fabric is part of the "Back to School" round and also includes other math and science themed fabrics.



What is a strike off? A strike off is essentially a sample the fabric designer gets from the manufacturer to check the design's print quality, color, etc. The strike offs are typically not very big, typically under a yard. Also, the designer's use these "real-life" samples to show customers before they purchase. This works in 2 ways. Sometimes it is hard to visualize how a digital image or photograph will look once it's printed on fabric.  Colors do change some and some fine details in the original design can be lost when printed on fabric. The second is that many people can not visualize how the fabric will translate into an article of clothing or other sewn item. So the designer sends the strike offs to some of their customers to sew them into something of their choosing, and in return the sewer posts photos of the completed items on the fabric designer's Facebook page. These photos are then used to promote the sale of the fabric in other Facebook groups related to custom fabrics and sewing.

In this case, the fabric I received was 24" by 24". I love sewing strike offs because I love the challenge of coming up with something to make that will fit the amount of fabric that I have.


In this case, I decided to make a shirt for a little boy. Since I also do embroidery, I thought I would also make my own embroidery design to go with this. I should have made screenshots of that process, but I wasn't thinking.

First thing I did was prepare my fabric to be embroidered. I love Floriani stabilizers. For knits, I always use their fusible no show mesh. It is fantastic.


I cut a piece and ironed it onto the wrong side of my fabric. Originally I was going to use this green jersey - but it ended up being too thin.


Then I hooped my fabric and started embroidering.


Here is the pi sign.


Here is the completed design.


Next I cut my pattern pieces. I used Simplicity 1285A for the pattern. If you notice - the top left piece is white. That is because since I only had so much pi fabric, and I didn't have enough to cut the band going the correct way with stretch, since there was some extra white around the sides of the fabric, I cut a neckband piece (the wrong way) a few inches longer to see if it would work before I cut a piece from my fabric.


The first step sewing is to sew the arms to the back piece.


Next I worked on the neckline of the front piece.  First I drew the lines for stay stitching and placement of the bands.


I then stitched over my marks.


Now I sewed the front to the sleeves.


Next I played with the neck band. I first sewed the white one on, then removed it and cut one from my pi fabric. I sewed it on, and then placed the pieces for the v-neck. This is the hardest part.


Here it is sewn on. It's not perfect - so don't look too close.


Now to sew the sides.


Finished.


This pattern is for a long sleeve, but I cut the sleeves shorter - but I think they may need to be shorter.


Hopefully next week I can add some photos of my friends little boy in this shirt. And I'll find out from her if they need to be shorter.

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