Three Knit Garments PLUS Girl Charlee Fabrics Giveaway (Europe Only)

***THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS FOR ENTERING. CONGRATULATIONS TO VICTORIA***

You know me, I'm a stash buster at heart, but I can't refuse the offer of free fabric when one occurs. Girl Charlee has recently launched a UK and Europe arm of the long-established US company, both of which sell high quality knit fabrics. They emailed me (and probably lots more UK sewing bloggers, let's be honest!) and offered me my choice of fabric in exchange for a review on my blog, so I chanced my arm and suggested a giveaway for my readers as well. 

My Fabric Selection:

Man, the weight of what to choose hung heavy! Seeing as I don't buy new fabric as a rule, the offer of some free stuff is a chance to really fill any holes in my wardrobe. Like many sewers, my stash is full of fun prints, so I felt this was a chance to pick a quality solid coloured fabric to make some decent basics that will bring me closer to a really cohesive clothing selection. You may have read my recent ramblings on and explorations into organic cotton, so my first port of call was to see what they offered in that vein. Nothing really grabbed me from their currently-small selection, plus it was unclear if theirs are GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certified (which is what you really want to find out when buying 'organic', IMO). So instead I asked for 2m of this navy Ponte de Roma, and if that was out of stock then some of the red anchor print jersey instead. Never one to shy away from a stereotype, me! Bless them, they sent me both my selections, from which I made three different garments. 

Fabric and Pattern Matching:

I'm going to blog separately about each of these three projects but I'll run through them in brief. First I tackled the printed anchor jersey. The base fabric is quite fine but stable, with very little drape, and I felt a form fitting knit top pattern would be most suitable for these qualities. I used the Bronte top pattern by Jennifer Lauren Vintage and some scraps of red jersey from my stash for the neck bindings. This top is so much fun! I wore it all day yesterday and it received a lot of compliments. Warning: this is an attention seeking fabric!

I always had a cardigan in mind for the Ponte de Roma, as my self-made cardi selection currently consists of only my leopard print Jenna cardi. I took this opportunity to attempt the gathered shoulder version of the Jenna in a solid fabric to make a garment that will hopefully layer well with all my striped jersey tops. The Ponte de Roma is super soft so feels great against the skin. It is very stretchy so I had to adjust the pattern a bit to accommodate for that properly (more on which in the separate blog post to follow). 

Despite making the long sleeved and hip length options of the Jenna (i.e. the most fabric hungry), I was left with enough Ponte to whip up a knit skirt too. I used the knit pencil skirt pattern in the Gertie Sews Vintage Casual book, and I couldn't be happier with the final outcome. The stretchiness of the Ponte is EXACTLY what I want for making a skirt. I can run around in it at playgrounds and playgroups, feel comfy on long train journeys and after eating big dinners, plus it feels lovely if worn with bare legs. 

The Giveaway and How to Enter: 

Girl Charlee are offering one of my blog readers the opportunity to be in the same situation that I was in: to choose 2m of whichever fabric that takes your fancy from their site! All you have to do is browse through their selection and copy the link of whichever you would like to own. Let me know what you've picked and paste that link in a comment at the bottom of this post. PLUS if you aren't sure I can find your email address within two clicks of my mouse, leave your email address in the body of the comment. Email addresses will not be used for anything other than contacting you if you win this giveaway.

It's not a prerequisite for entering, but I also heartily recommend that you follow Girl Charlee on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to hear about their special offers, new fabrics and so on. They also often share tutorials, guides, patterns, giveaways, etc.

Apologies to readers of this blog who live elsewhere, but this giveaway is for residents of Europe only I'm afraid. When I can, I make my giveaways international (I ended up sending the B*Inspired magazine to New Zealand, BTW), but I'm not making the rules this time, sorry.

Make sure you have commented by midnight GMT on Monday 31st August to enter. Multiple entries will be discounted, as will any entries that do not tell me which item you'd like to win (honestly, you'd be surprised by how many people will no longer be reading this far down the post...). And just to clarify, if you win your choice of fabric, it will be posted to you for free, with absolutely no cost to yourself. On the 1st September I will use a random number generator to select one winner and contact them to get their postal addresses to forward on to Girl Charlee so they can send out the prize. All clear? Good!