Precious lace
Choosing lace to sew a garment is to bring a very refined and elegant note to its creation. Whether you want a bohemian, romantic, sophisticated look, the look will take on a completely different tone if you choose to add a touch of lace to the outfit: a pretty embroidered blouse is unmatched in making the outfit remarkable, as beautiful associated with chic pants as with jeans.
You can imagine that I couldn't resist the idea of introducing this beautiful fabric into our fabric range!
Lace by Maison Fauve
We have integrated lace into our range of fabrics when launching the Fauvae Botanica collection . The Cicadella blouse pattern was also created especially with the aim of offering you the perfect little lace blouse that is easy to sew. All our lace is woven in Turkey in the workshops that also weave the lace of a pretty brand that has many addicts ;)
Botanica Lace
The Botanica Cumin Lace Storm Blouse
Our first lace design is Botanica lace : a very beautiful cotton and polyamide lace, non-stretch, that you can wear alone or with a lining . This lace has magnificent embroidered rosette patterns and it is also easy to wear on a daily basis because it is not very openwork.
Acanthus lace
For the end of year celebrations, I looked for a new fabric with more ornamental embroidery, and I fell for this new Acanthe lace with arabesque plant motifs. Very soft, also non-stretchy, it is more openwork than the Botanica lace. However, I did not hesitate to sew an unlined version of the Soliflore dress , in order to deliberately play with this transparency.
Shell Lace
The Déferlante blouse in Passion Red Shell Lace
For the summer, and the Fauve Romance collection , I fell in love with this new lace . The Coquillage pattern is so delicate, a real marvel! And it really stands out from more traditional laces, it's interesting to consider this weaving work as a pattern in its own right. This lace is made of cotton and polyamide , non-stretchy, and it has very limited openwork.
Timeless or colorful
We offer our lace in a whole range of colors.
The timeless black and ecru can be found in our Botanica and Coquillage designs.
Ecru Shell Lace - Black Botanica Lace
For colorful lace sewing , our Botanica and Coquillage laces take up the palettes of Fauvae Botanica and Fauve Romance: Cherry Red , Cinnamon , Romance Pink ,Smoky Blue , Sulfide Yellow , Chocolate, our beautiful signature colors are thus available on our laces. And the Acanthe laces are in beautiful dark shades: Midnight Blue and Scarab Green , highlighted with black outlines.
How to sew lace
Since our laces are not made with elastane, they will not stretch when you transfer your pattern onto your fabric. However, you will need to be careful when transferring the markings and notches because the fact that the lace is openwork can make this step a little more complex. On most of our laces, we can transfer the lines with a Pilot Friction pen or tailor's chalk, but do not hesitate to use the basting thread technique if your lace does not allow tracing: we transfer the markings and lines with a hand seam, using a thread in a very contrasting color and sewing a loose stitch through the pattern paper.
Use needles for delicate textiles such as our Microtex needles for pinning and sewing, so as not to pull any threads. This is what we do for all our lace without any problem. You can also stabilize your pieces for sewing with small clips if your lace is particularly "hollowed out" by its patterns.
How to get pretty finishes in sewing with lace
For beautiful finishes, we offer you in particular with the pattern of the Cicadella blouse or the Daïquiri dress/blouse an assembly in English seam . This is a seam that is done in 2 stages, in order to trap the free edge of the fabric. This technique is particularly neat, and very simple to do. We detail it for you in the free video step-by-steps of these 2 patterns.
It is of course possible to overlock or serge the lace , choosing a thread that matches the fabric will make your work clean and invisible.
To finish your neckline, and if your lace is particularly openwork, I recommend that you place a folded bias rather than sewing a clean edge that would be visible through the lace. We also explain this method in our videos, and several of our patterns include a specially designed bias piece for impeccable and easy-to-achieve finishes.
The hem of the bottom of the garment may, depending on the lace fabric, be replaced by the edge of the width: in fact, some lace, as is sometimes the case for English embroidery, is embellished and allows you to "finish" the garment with a pretty embroidered pattern. But be careful, in this case you will have to transfer your pieces in the counter-grain, therefore at 90° to the straight grain. Take this into account when placing it, which will not be the one provided on the cutting plan.
Which pattern for a lace garment?
Blouse, little top, blouse but also dress, skirt, the choice is vast and will depend on the style you want to give to your outfit. I sewed in our lace the Cicadella blouse, the Soliflore blouse, the beautiful Daïquiri, but also the Blush dress bottom or the Spritz tank top. And I even sewed the skirt version of the Pénélope pattern, much too cute!
The Soliflore blouse / The Pénélope skirt - The Blush dress base
The Chelsea blouse - The Soliflore dress
Easy patterns are also a good choice to tame lace: the Marisa top is a perfect choice with its bias neckline and its pretty pleat in the back. The Zenith sewing pattern will also be superb, with its pretty dart work which will be very well rendered on the lace.
Zenith Dress - Botanica Orange Cinnamon Lace Fabric
How to line your lace garment
This will really depend on your sewing pattern. The Cicadella blouse is a pattern specifically designed for sewing lace, its construction and assembly instructions detail all the steps to line your blouse. The steps to line your Cicadella blouse are described in this video tutorial.
I have also written a special article to help you with the sewing steps for the Primrose dress in Acanthe lace (available here ).
Do not hesitate to consult these contents, they will surely help you to better understand how to sew a lined lace garment.
Other patterns have a design that will make the task of lining your sewing more difficult. For example, I did not line my Daïquiri dress, its shoulder cutouts do not lend themselves to it.
But we have a pattern specially created to slip under all your dresses, blouses and lace skirts: the Blush camisole and slip dress pattern .
And in order to line all our lace, we offer you a complete range of cotton voile . They are perfect: soft and light, easy to sew, they are available in the entire range of colors of Maison fauve lace.
The interlining technique for sewing a lace collar or cuff
When sewing a collar or a cuff, I recommend the interlining technique . This is a method that allows you to trap the iron-on in 2 layers of lining that you will then assemble with your lace piece. Don't panic, I explain everything in the sewing tutorial for the Cicadella blouse , also available. This is indeed the method that I use for its pretty pointed cuff.
Caring for your lace garment
Our laces are all machine washable . I recommend that you put your sewing in a washing net, and wash your clothes on a delicate cycle. Ironing our laces is completely possible, provided that you put the iron at a low temperature so as not to burn the fabric.
You know everything about our beautiful lace and how to sew it. I hope that this article will perhaps allow you to take the plunge, believe me, a lace sewing is a little gem and you will be very proud to wear your creation in this wonderful fabric (and your non-sewing friends will surely be amazed by your talent)!
