Precious Laces
Choosing lace to sew a garment adds a refined and elegant touch to your creation. Whether you're going for a bohemian, romantic or sophisticated look, the look will take on a whole new tone if you choose to add a touch of lace to your outfit: a pretty embroidered blouse is second to none when it comes to making an outfit stand out, looking just as good paired with smart trousers as with jeans.
As you can imagine, I couldn't resist adding this beautiful fabric to our range!
Lace by Maison Fauve
We introduced lace to our fabric range when we launched the Fauvae Botanica collection. The pattern for the Cicadella blouse was created especially with a view to offering you the perfect little lace blouse that is easy to sew. All our lace is woven in Turkey in the same workshops that weave lace for a pretty brand that has many loyal fans ;)
Botanica lace
Our first lace design is the Botanica lace: a beautiful non-stretch cotton and polyamide that you can wear on its own or with a lining. This lace has beautiful embroidered rosette motifs and is also easy to wear everyday as it is not too open.
Acanthus lace
For the festive season, I looked for a new fabric with more decorative embroidery, and I fell for this new Acanthe lace with an arabesque plant motif. Very soft and non-stretchy, it's more open than the Botanica lace. However, I couldn’t wait to sew an unlined version of the Soliflore dress, to deliberately play with this transparency.
Coquillage lace
For summer, and the Fauve Romance collection, I fell in love with this new Coquillage lace. The coquillage (shell) pattern is so delicate, it's a real marvel! And it really stands out from the more traditional laces. It's interesting to think of this weaving work as a motif in its own right. This lace is made from cotton and polyamide, is non-stretchy and has smaller openwork.
Timeless or colourful
We offer our laces in a whole range of shades.
The timeless black and ecru colours can be found in our Botanica and Coquillage designs.
Ecru Coquillage lace - Black Botanica lace
For colourful lace sewing, our Botanica and Coquillage laces are based on the Fauvae Botanica and Fauve Romance palettes: Cherry Red, Cinnamon, Rose Romance, Smoky Blue, Sulphur Yellow, our beautiful signature colours are used on our laces. And Acanthe lace comes in beautiful dark shades: Midnight Blue and Beetle Green, highlighted with black outlines.
How to sew lace?
Our laces are not made with elastane, so there's no risk of them stretching when you transfer your pattern to your fabric. However, you will need to be careful when transferring marks and notches, the fact that the lace has openings can make this step a little more complex. On most of our laces, you can transfer the markings with a Pilot Frixion type pen or tailor's chalk, but don't be scared to use the tacking stitch technique if your lace doesn't allow for tracing: we transfer the markings and tracings with tailor’s tacks, using a thread in a very contrasting colour and sewing a loose stitch through the pattern paper.
Use delicate textile needles like our Microtex needles for pinning and sewing, so you don’t pull the threads. We do this for all our laces without any problems. You can also secure your pieces for sewing with small sewing clips if your lace is particularly 'hollowed out' due to the motifs.
How to achieve finishes when sewing with lace?
For a beautiful finish, we suggest using the Cicadella blouse or the Daïquiri dress/blouse pattern with a French seam. This is a seam that is sewn in 2 steps, to gather the free edge of the fabric. This technique is particularly meticulous and very easy to do. We explain it in detail in the free video step-by-step instructions for these 2 patterns.
You can, of course, overcast the lace, choosing a thread that matches the fabric will make your work neat and invisible.
To finish your neckline, and if your lace is particularly openworked, I recommend that you apply a folded bias rather than sewing a neat edge that would show through the lace. We also explain this method in our videos, and several of our patterns include a specially patterned bias piece for impeccable, easy-to-make finishes.
Depending on the lace fabric, the hem at the bottom of the garment can be replaced by the edge of the width: some lace, as is sometimes the case with broderie anglaise, are embellished and allow you to "finish" the garment with a pretty embroidered motif. But be careful, in this case you will need to transfer your pieces against the grain, i.e. at 90° to the grain line. Bear this in mind when laying out the pattern pieces, which will not be as shown on the cutting plan.
Which pattern for a lace garment?
Blouses, tops, blouses, dresses, skirts - the choice is vast and depends on the style you want for your outfit. I've sewn the Cicadella blouse, the Soliflore dress, the beautiful Daïquiri, as well as the Blush base dress and the Spritz tank top from our lace. And I even sewed the skirt version of the Pénélope pattern, which is just too gorgeous!
Penelope skirt - Blush dress/camisole
Chelsea blouse - Soliflore dress
The easier patterns are also a good choice for getting to grips with lace: the Marisa top is a perfect choice with its bias neckline and pretty pleat in the back. The Zenith sewing pattern and the Chelsea blouse will also be superb, with their pretty darts that will look great in lace.
Zenith dress - Cinnamon Botanica lace
How to line your lace garment?
This will really depend on your sewing pattern. The Cicadella blouse is a pattern specially designed for sewing lace, its construction and assembly instructions detail all the steps for lining your blouse. The tutorial to line your Cicadella blouse is available here.
I've also written a special article to guide you through the sewing steps for the Primrose dress in Acanthus lace (available here).
Make sure you refer to this content, it will certainly 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 haven't lined my Daïquiri dress, as the shoulder cut-outs don't lend themselves to a lining.
But we do have a pattern specially created to slip under all your lace dresses, blouses and skirts: the Blush dress camisole.
And to complement all our laces, we offer a full range of cotton voile. They're perfect: soft and light, easy to sew, and available in the full range of Maison fauve lace colours.
The triple-needle technique for sewing a lace collar or cuff
When sewing a collar or cuff, I recommend the triple-needle technique. This method traps the iron-on interfacing in 2 layers of lining, which you then assemble with your lace piece. Don't panic, I'll explain everything in the sewing tutorial for the Cicadella blouse, also available. I'm using this method for its pretty pointed cuff.
Caring for your lace garment
Our laces are all machine washable. I recommend that you put your garments in a net bag for delicates, and wash your clothes on a delicate programme. You can iron our lace as long as you set the iron to a low temperature so as not to burn the fabric.
Now you know all about our beautiful laces and how to sew them. I hope this article will inspire you to take the plunge - trust me, a lace item is a little jewel, and you'll be very proud to wear your creation in this wonderful fabric (and your non-lace-sewing friends will be amazed by your talent)!
