What does “directional fabric” mean? #BeginnerSewing #SewingHack

Here we see a row of quite a few bolts of fabric. They range in color from deep purple to pastel pink. Each uses a tiny print. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

Have you ever wondered why floral and polka dot fabrics are so popular? One of the reasons why people love polka dots and florals is because they’re usually non-directional fabrics.

But what does that mean? Well, that’s what I’ll address today, and I’ll let you know how I made alterations to a Marie Osmond doll dress when I didn’t have enough of a directional fabric.

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What is directional fabric? Top image shows the garment front with dolman sleeves (the kind of sleeves that stick out from the basic rectangle that makes the dress front, like the square sleeves of a kimono). The pattern of tulips and other stylized flowers on this red dress front are all facing upright, with their leaves coming up from the bottom of the flowers’ stems. Bottom image shows the same dress’s back pieces cut out with the fabric going the wrong direction. In other words, the tulips and stylized flowers are all upside down. Each flower stands on its head, with its leaves jutting out from the top of the stem, which is above the flower’s blossom. So the backs were cut out with the directional fabric going the wrong way, and the main reason we can tell is because these dolman sleeves form a T-shape, which tells us where the top of the garment is. But the flowers are all upside down. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

As you can see in the images of the Barbie dress that I’ve cut out above, directional fabric will have a pattern that has a right-way-up method to cut it out and an upside-down method to cut it.

In this example, I have cut out the front and back pieces of a dress that has kimono-style sleeves. This was a shorter alteration for the View B dress from the Butterick 6664 doll clothes pattern for Marie Osmond Barbie dolls. I’ve got a photo of that pattern in the image below.

I cut the dress so that it had both a shorter length overall and shorter sleeves. But as you can see in the image above, I also cut the backs with the flowers going the WRONG DIRECTION.

If I had made the dress, based on the first cutting, then once you put this dress on the doll, the back side of the dress would have had upside-down flowers!

Here we see a photo of the Marie Osmond 6664 "Butterick's Personality Doll Wardrobe" envelope and its photo of an actual Marie Osmond doll modeling a red western shirt with white front yokes and a pair of shiny black pants. The pattern options to the doll's right are showing a yellow jumper (in the USA sense of "jumper" -- a sleeveless dress which is sometimes worn over a shirt): a floor length caftan dress with ribbon ties at the sleeve and a waistband; a blue, V-neck long-sleeved shirt with cuffs and a waistband; a long-sleeved white shirt with a collar and cuffs; a purple evening dance dress with a zig-zag-cut skirt and a bodice with straps that tie at the shoulders; a short camel-colored caftan blouse with a waistband and ribbon ties at the sleeves' ends; a green flared ice skater's skirt; a green body suit with long sleeves and a turtle neck. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

I can’t tell you how long I spent thinking about how to use this fabric! I only had a small swatch of it, and I wasn’t sure what dress pattern would work, due to the fact that it was a directional fabric.

The reason I chose the Butterick 6664 View C dress was because a.) I was already familiar with the pattern, b.) I could shorten the pattern to make it fit on the fabric swatch, and c.) when I cut it out, I actually intended to make changes to the sleeves.

If you look at the images below, you’ll see how I created an alteration that would switch the direction of the fabric, so the flowers wouldn’t be going the wrong way on the dress’s back…

One. I cut the sleeves off and moved them down and across. (Image shows both backs with sleeves cut off. Arrows point down and across to the opposite back from which the sleeve was cut.) Two. I re-attached the sleeves at the other end. (Sleeves are laid on each back, right sides facing, and a graphic of stitch lines shows how to attach the sleeve to the same side of the back as the notches.) Three. I cut a new neckline for each back. Four. I trimmed off the old neckline for each back. (Image shows scissors cutting away at what’s now the bottom of each back, but what used to be the top of each back.) — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

Now granted, you couldn’t make this type of alteration on a dress that didn’t have dolman or kimono sleeves. However, this was a great way to get the most out of my very small scrap of directional fabric, altering the dress so that the flowers would all be upright instead of upside down.

The two biggest complications to this alteration were the issue with the notches being on the wrong side of the garment after re-attaching the sleeves, and the fact that I had to shorten the dress significantly, as you can see in Figure 4 above.

Without shortening the backs, the dress would have had a really weird looking hem where the neckline used to be.

And as you might imagine, I had to make this same length change to the garment front as well. So here’s what I created from the tiny scrap of fabric I started with, using the alterations I made to the View C dress from Butterick 6664 for the Marie Osmond Barbie doll:

A Christie doll’s head on a modern Curvy Barbie body models a handmade dress that is an alteration of the view C dress from Butterick 6664 for the Marie Osmond Barbie doll. The doll models the dress from the side (left), front (center) and back (right), demonstrating that the alterations made to the dress turned out well, with a comfortable fit for this Kimono sleeved sheath style dress that has been shortened to be just above the knee, in terms of overall length. The sleeves are ¾ length. The neckline is a boatneck style. The miniature tulips and other stylized flowers are all upright on the bright red (almost magenta pink) jersey fabric of the Barbie dress. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

The only reason the sleeves ended up shorter is because I literally only had enough of the original fabric scrap to make three-quarter length sleeves.

But I still think the dress turned out very nice, and it even fits a Curvy Barbie! So hey, that’s great!

Questions: Do you ever struggle with directional fabrics? Do you have any tips or tricks to share, to help others work with directional fabrics?

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