Sophie dress in FS Artemina White lightweight Cotton Faille

Around early April of this year, I was ruminating over what to make for my daughter to wear for my wedding that was to take place in May. It was quite serendipitous when I found out Fabrics-Store was releasing a new range of cotton printed fabrics as I had narrowed down my idea to a little poufy princess-esque dress with a large scale floral print. After a long and considered perusal through the collection, I landed on the Artemina print in white.

The Artemina print is deliciously large scale in a dreamy, loose, painterly watercolor style. I’m no botanist but a few of the flowers I can identify on the print include poppies, alliums, proteas, and roses, each in perfectly saturated spring tones of lavender, orange, peach, yellow, and pink.  Upon opening up my package of this fabric, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor as I couldn’t believe how even more beautiful this print was in person. The cotton faille is a great substrate for such a print, as it truly absorbs and highlights the colors in such a lovely and rich way. Since I decided to make a dress for my daughter, I loved the fact this fabric is 100% cotton and was printed with non-toxic ink.

Sophie dress in FS Artemina White lightweight Cotton Faille

Straight out of the package and unwashed, this cotton faille had a lovely crisp, cool hand-feel. After a warm wash and dry in the tumbler, the fabric retained its cool crispness albeit a few subtle rumples that were very easily ironed out. What makes faille fabric unique is in the way it is woven, which gives its textured, ribbed surface. It’s almost similar to the way a twill fabric looks, but rather than diagonal ribs, faille’s ribs run parallel to the grain of the fabric.  It definitely feels like an elevated cotton fabric, which made a perfect choice for my daughter’s dress for my wedding ceremony.

I was already in the midst of toiling my own wedding dress when I began thinking of daughter’s dress, so to give myself one less thing to get creative paralysis over, I decided to purchase an indie sewing pattern rather than draft one from scratch.  I chose the Sophie Dress by OhMeOhMySewing over on Etsy. It features all the details I was looking for: adorably poufy sleeves and a gathered skirt; plus details I didn’t know I needed but absolutely loved: a gathered ruffle along the top of the bodice and snap closures at the back for easy on/off!

Sophie dress in FS Artemina White lightweight Cotton Faille

This project proved to be one of the more successful and ideal fabric + sewing pattern matches I’ve done in a while! The cotton faille was a breeze and a dream to work with; it was very stable to both cut and sew, it holds gathers wonderfully, and the slight structure of the fabric allowed for the poufy sleeves to remain puffy throughout wear rather than collapsing and being too drapey – perfect playful princess dress vibes for my daughter. She loved wearing it, too, as she’s starting to figure out what feels comfortable and what doesn’t when it comes to clothing. If she doesn’t like the way a garment fits or feels, she will try to take it off at the sleeves, but there was absolutely no sleeve pulling with this number.

I saw that Fabrics-Store recently released solid colors of this stash-worthy faille so now I’m eyeing both the black and white fabrics and dreaming up perfectly crisp button-down shirt and shorts sets for summer!