Sewing stripes together | How to sew striped fabric

Sewing stripes together - that can be a real challenge if you like wearing striped shirts and dresses. With my tips and tricks, you'll achieve perfect seams on striped fabric!

My wardrobe is full of striped shirts, tops, and cardigans. I just love stripes. They always fit in - and brighten up any outfit!

Sewing stripes together | How to sew striped fabric

Sewing striped fabric was a long-time fear of mine, one that I didn't really dare to tackle.

Since I've mastered a few simple tricks, I've been achieving perfect seams in my striped shirts!

Sewing woven fabrics, i.e. non-stretch fabrics, with stripes is easy.

But sewing striped jersey or sweatshirt fabric is a real challenge. And there's hardly anything cooler than striped Sweatshirts and Hoodies!

Preparing striped fabric - here's how!

You should wash the fabric before cutting. If the jersey rolls up a lot at the edges, you can finish the edges beforehand with the overlocker or with a zigzag stitch.

If your fabric is very stretchy and unstable, you can pre-treat it with fabric booster before cutting.

This is a good way to tame unruly fabrics.

The booster is simply sprayed onto the fabric. Then let the fabric dry flat. Iron before processing. Then you can get started with cutting.

I also like to use the Fabric Booster^* (by the way, from Odif, who also makes Odicoat for fabric coating) for viscose, slinky fabrics, lace, fine knit, or Lycra fabrics too. With this secret tip, you can tame practically any material!

Important: If you have a fabric with a uniform repeat, you can simply buy the quantity specified in the pattern. 

If your fabric has irregular stripes, buy one more repeat, i.e. one more pattern repetition.

This way, you ensure that you can position the armhole and sleeve attachment at the same height even with these fabrics.

Cutting striped fabric on the fold

Then you lay the fabric flat. The right sides are facing each other.

Align the fabric so that the stripes match up perfectly and fold it wide enough so that your pattern lies comfortably on the fold.

Secure the fabric layers over a large area with sewing pins so that nothing can slip during cutting.

Align the pattern so that the armholes of the front and back pieces as well as the front sleeve attachment always start on the same stripe.

This works especially well with transparent pattern paper^*!

Secure the pattern firmly on the fabric and then cut without moving the fabric.

This works very well with a sharp rotary cutter. Get more information about thebasic sewing kit!

Lately, I really like using the electric scissors^*, because they cut much faster and more evenly than manual scissors. You can read more about cutting tools in my post Everything about scissors for sewing .

You should pay special attention to the stripes at the hem. Be very precise here with the arrangement of the pattern.

Open cutting for striped fabrics

If the pattern of your fabric is difficult or impossible to match up perfectly, I recommend the open cutting method. For this, you need a complete pattern piece.

If the pattern only provides half a pattern piece with a fold edge, simply print the whole thing twice and glue it together in the middle.

Then place it on the fabric and pin it firmly.

Sewing striped fabric - here's how it works!

Pin the pattern pieces together at the body hem, the armholes, and the sleeve hems.

Then work your way from stripe to stripe. It's worth investing a little time here: Every stripe gets its own sewing pin.

Sewing striped fabric

Once everything is well pinned together, it's time for the sewing machine. Or rather: the overlocker.

Lift the presser foot, push the fabric up to the needles, and lower the foot.

Then start sewing slowly. Carefully align each stripe again before the needle catches it.

And only remove the sewing pins at the very last moment.

With these tricks, the side seams are practically invisible!

Cool, right? :)

Maxim wears the Miles Men's Shirt in a great hipster jersey from Alles für Selbermacher.

I recently bought the stylish red-and-white striped summer sweatshirt with matching solid navy fabric from Hemmers in Lübeck. Super suitable for maritime shirts and hoodies.

You can also easily order the beautiful striped Summer Sweatshirt^*  online at Hemmers.

Anyway, I think summer sweatshirt fabric is a great material because it doesn't add as much bulk as sweatshirt fabric and is much easier to sew than jersey. Probably that's why the comfortable fabric, which is also called French Terry, is one of my favorite materials.

You can also find out Everything about French Terry in my corresponding blog post.

With wide stripes, sewing them together is even easier.

Pattern: Hoodie Guste.

By the way, the hoodie pattern is also available as Hoodie Pepper up to size 60 with rapid subdivisions!

Here too, you should give every stripe two sewing pins.

Pattern: Dress Roosmarei (size 32 - 60) with seam pockets and hood sewn as a hoodie dress.

I found the beautiful fabric - like most of my Jersey fabrics^* - at Stoffe-Hemmers.

YouTube Video Sewing Striped Fabric

Now you're curious to make such a beautiful striped piece yourself?

Feel free to tell me about your sewing plans with striped fabric in the comments! :)

Happy stripes sewing,

your Sabine