Project Run and Play: Color Blocking Tutorial

You're going to love this color blocking tutorial from Carin of Art Bella Creates. She proved she's a master at color blocking in her Mini Season 2 creation! Here she is with an awesome color blocking tutorial:

I love color-blocking when I sew. I like that it makes your garment an unique kind of art. one of a kind, because no matter how you do it, it is in itself perfectly unique.

It starts with a vision, what pattern I am going to use, what fabric I have in my stash or sometimes it is something specific and I go searching for the fabric that I need. Once I picked the pattern, I am going to mark my cutlines. For this I recommend a curved and straight ruler. I will be honest and say for curves I rarely use a ruler and just go free hand.

If it is a top pattern I am going to line up my shoulder seams or side seams and only draw the block line on one pattern piece. I draw a couple of straight lines right through the line as you can see above where I will later cut diamonds on my fabric to know where the two pieces of fabric need to line up.

If the front and back have continuous color blocking, I will cut out my blocked piece and then flip it over right sides together to mark the back of the pattern . This is important so your seams are all matching between front and back.

I write my colors on my pattern pieces so I know which color to cut. It gets more complicated if you have different colors on each side but I'll explain later.

Now let's get to the specific jumpsuit I made for Week 3 of Project Run and Play's Mini season 2. It was definitely a challenge with lots of thinking involved but a very fun one indeed. It's like a puzzle fitting together. I mashed up two different patterns for the jumpsuit. Both are from Project Run and Play's Lounge Library collection. For the bodice I used the Biography Bomigan Pattern and for the bottom I used the Prose and Poetry Cargo Joggers Pattern.

I laid out my patterns and decided where my colors were going to go.

Once you draw your lines and notches, write down colors and cut pattern as explained above , you are ready to cut your fabric. For this particular jumpsuit I picked pink for the one side , teal in the middle and yellow on the other side.

As you know we mostly have pattern pieces for half of the garment. Everything gets cut as a mirror image so we don't have two left legs. The middle blue was easy and I just cut it like normal on a fold or wrong sides together. For the sides I used the right sides for my pink, flipped the pattern pieces over ( both of them I put on my right side of my fabric because instead of flipping my fabric, I flipped my pattern pieces.)

The same goes for the sleeves, the pink I cut with the right side of the pattern and I flipped the pattern piece to the wrong side for the yellow sleeve.

Before you cut your fabric, put all your pattern pieces together and make sure lines are going to line up. For the jumper I had to make sure my middles line up in front and back, upper and lower sides , again front and back.

Every extra color blocked line that you added is going to need seam allowance. For my top part I knew I was cutting on the fold and my pants had seam allowance so I had to adjust for that and make sure they will line up.

If you have a dress form it is very helpful to pin your cut pattern pieces to your dress form to make sure all looks good.

NOW you are ready to cut your fabric. With color blocking I recommend taking your time, check and check again before you cut. Make sure you have the right color and make sure you know if you should have the pattern piece right side facing you or if it needs to be flipped.

REMEMBER TO ADD YOUR SEAM ALLOWANCE TO EVERY LINE YOU HAVE ADDED TO YOUR PATTERN. Pattern pieces have seam allowance in already but if you added a line you will have to cut extra seam allowance JUST ON THE LINES YOU ADDED. When you change a pattern that has an open front like the Biography to a one piece you need to fold your pattern piece in and add your " place on fold of fabric" to your pattern.

Once you have your pieces cut, you can start assembling. I add those lines right through my color block line so when I cut my fabric I cut my diamond notches and I usually have at least two or more on one line.

Now I can match my notches right sides together of my fabric. If you have curves I recommend LOTS of pinning.

Press your seams after every seam you sewed. When I am working with a knit fabric, I always mostly use my serger but when I color block and I sew front and back pieces together that has a color blocked seam I pin it together, sew it together with my sewing machine first and then serge. The serger has a way of pushing one fabric out before the other with knit and because you can't serge over pins like a normal sewing machine, go ahead and sew it together with the sewing machine first. That way it gives you good sides that matches up. and press, press, press those seams always.