On rainy Friday afternoon we visited the Flinders Lane Tessuti to pick our fabric for the Knots and Crosses Sewing Competition. The team kindly let us sit down on the pattern table and plan out our outfits (and raid the button box)
The Fabric
The fabric for this year’s Tessuti competition was a broderie anglaise designs available in 4 colours. It had two scales of the stitching pattern in each colour. The composition was 75% cotton and 25% linen, making it versatile for a whole fabulous range of possible garments. See the full range of fabric on the Tessuti store here.
Lauren’s Outfit
I wanted to create a skirt and top that was able to worn together and with other separates. We wanted to use both scales of the stitched fabric in the garment and picking which fabric was used for each feature was important to showcase the features of the fabric and garment.
I chose to use Simplicity 5497 for my top as I like the gathered sleeve and could see how the larger scale would work through the bodice and sleeve with the smaller square for the ruffle and the cuff of the sleeve.
Erin’s Outfit
With a focus on building her corporate work wardrobe, Erin chose to make a shirt dress style number.
I chose Vogue 2684 a vintage pattern we had in our collection as I like the collar feature and built in belt detail. To highlight these features I wanted to use the larger stitched fabric on the main part of the bodice and skirt than to show the unique features use the smaller square stitching on the collar facing so it would the fabric that you see when it is worn and the belt.
Garment Construction
Self covered buttons
Lauren’s top and Erin’s dress called for buttons as their closures. We chose to use self covered buttons so we were not adding in another feature or texture that would distract from the texture of the existing fabric or other garment details. The selvage of the fabric was wide enough that we could use it as the material to cover our 15mm and 19mm buttons
Bias Tape Hem Finish
As neither of our garments had any top stitching we wanted this to be consistent in the hem. The bias tape provides a neat finish on the underside and worked well with this type of fabric as meant the hem did not rely on the overlocker skipping over the section where the raised stitching of the broderie anglaise was thick or holding together areas of the cut out holes in the fabric design.
Pillow Case Lining
The stitching and hole punched style of the broderie anglaise fabric meant there were areas of the fabric that could be seen through. For the main bodice parts of the our garments, we chose to line them in a white cotton fabric. As the fabric would not be seen and this was a perfect opportunity to upcycle some white pillowcases.
Knots and Crosses Sewing Competition Credits
Thank you to Tessuti Fabrics for running the Knots and Crosses Sewing Competion, another interesting and creative competition!
Thank you to James Christie for photographing our makes.
You can see our 2019 Colour in Thirds entries here and 2018 Skylines Tessuti entry here. Another few great competition run by Tessuti Fabrics.
