Starting a clothing project can feel either very easy or pretty hard even before you stitch a single seam. The fabric you choose determines whether the parts look good on the table, if the parts move freely under the sewing machine presser foot, whether or not it takes a good press, or if the seam allowance can be clearly seen. A pattern may look straightforward, but slippery fabric, stretchy fabric, and even very bulky fabric can make that same project look more confusing. Picking calmer fabric allows your hands to focus on getting used to how to measure, cut, pin, stitch, and check the fabric.
For your initial garment project, pick fabric that feels more stable in your hands. A plain, light to medium weight cotton will usually work better than satin, chiffon, heavy denim or very stretchy knit fabric. Fabric that feels stable won’t slip away from your hands as soon as you set two parts of it down on top of each other, and fabric that feels stable will usually hold a shape long enough to place notches, fold lines and seam guides on. This is important because as you sew your garment you have several different actions that you need to learn simultaneously: learning how to read a pattern, finding the seam guide for your machine, keeping layers in place and preventing the fabric from going out of shape.
Before you choose the fabric you’ll sew your project out of, feel the fabric and learn how it acts. Try folding a corner in your hands and pressing with a light iron, to see if you get a clear crease. Hold a raw edge and check if the fabric stretches, or if the edge is curling. Set your fabric down on a table and see if it looks like the grain goes straight, or if the fabric keeps twisting. Doing all these small checks will tell you much more than the color and print alone. You can get a very nice print and still have a difficult fabric if the fabric keeps slipping around, can’t have visible chalk marks, or it’s so far away from the grain that you’ll have to sew along a bias edge while you’re cutting.
You want to have an idea of which steps of garment sewing you wish to practice, and select your fabric based on those steps. If you’re going to be learning to sew straight seams, hems, and simple press, then pick a plain woven fabric that will give you a nice straight seam line that you can easily see. If you will be learning to add a simple waistband or facing, pick a fabric that can be pressed without the fabric becoming too thick for the seams. If there’s a neck or an armhole that curves, do not pick fabric that is either very loose or slippery, until you have practiced turning a few small gentle curves on fabric scraps. Your fabric should help your sewing lesson rather than adding more lessons than you’re ready for.
Sew a small test piece prior to cutting out any of your pattern pieces. Set up the sewing machine and choose the best needle size for the fabric weight. Then sew a short straight seam on a fold of scraps to test. Look at both the upper and the underside of the seam line. If the threads bunch or the fabric wrinkles or if the stitch is very tight, try changing your stitch before you cut the pattern. Then take that sample seam and press it flat, then press the seam open, then press one side of the seam under, and note the difference in how flat it feels. That little test will also let you see if tailor’s chalk or a fabric marking tool will be easily visible on the fabric notches and seam allowance guides.
Another test to try is testing how many layers of fabric you can manage without them moving out of place. Place two scrap fabric squares together, pin or clip them and sew a short seam slowly. Does the fabric edge stay in place, or does one piece of fabric start moving away from the other one? If your fabric is badly shifting on your test seam, you will probably be needing to pay more attention to where you put the pins on your garment, cutting shorter seam lines so that you can handle the fabric, or basting the seam lines before you sew them. You may not be able to work with the fabric, but you may be able to learn how much extra care the fabric is requiring before it gets to be your garment.
Your safest fabric for a first garment is not necessarily the most expensive fabric, or the most stunning print on the fabric store bolt. It is the fabric that allows you to clearly see how your hands are working on it. Fabric that stays relatively flat, allows visible markings, has good feed under your foot and presses without much of a fight lets you spend time focusing on what matters: cutting to pattern and grain, learning to guide fabric rather than pull the fabric, making sure the seam allowance is correct, learning how to trim loose threads, learning to press as you go, and learning to make small corrections while they’re still small.