Ten Tips for Sewing with Fine Cotton Fabric

Cotton is a popular fabric choice among sewists and crafters, and for good reason! With its breathability and wide availability in a huge range of prints and styles, it's no surprise that cotton has had a bit of a renaissance in recent years. 

In particular, finer cottons like lawn, voile, Swiss dot and seersucker have become increasingly popular. They are relatively easy to cut, sew and press, yet lightweight, so provide a lovely balance of structure and drape. 

Cotton is one of the easiest fabrics to work with, but still has its quirks. But with the following tips, you'll be well on your way to sewing some gorgeous cotton clothes…

Ten Tips for Sewing with Ankara Fabric (AKA African Wax Print)

Continuing our posts on tips for sewing with different types of fabrics, we’re showcasing the vibrant, the bold, and the - yes! - easy-to-sew wonder that is Ankara fabric, AKA African wax print. Who better to ask to talk us through how to use this material than Lena King, one of our favourite sewing bloggers and co-host of #SewAnkaraFabric and #AnkaraFabricAppreciationWeek on Insta.

Over to Lena...

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I was thrilled when Tilly reached out to me to ask if I’d like to write a guest blog on my favourite fabric, Ankara – also known as Dutch or African wax print. Yes, please!

I’m going to give you an introduction to what Ankara is and where it came from, where you can buy it, and my top tips for sewing with this wonderful material. Spoiler alert: it’s easy to cut, handle and sew – hooray!

What is Ankara fabric? 

Ankara, or African wax print, or Dutch wax print, is a cloth manufactured by machine to resemble the effect of wax resist. 

Do you remember doing a bit of wax-resist painting or fabric dying back in school? You took your paper or piece of cloth and drew a design on it with crayon or hot wax and then painted over it or plunged it into a bucket of dye. When dry, you would have just ironed off the wax. That’s the basic process.

It is cotton, a natural fibre which makes it breathable and not sweaty or sticky next to the skin.

It’s a great fabric for beginners. Imagine something between a cotton poplin and quilting-weight cotton often with the softness of a cotton lawn. It’s strong and can withstand the heavy use of a seam ripper! It is stable so stays put when cutting and sewing and it doesn’t stretch out of shape. 

My own relationship with Ankara

I’m from Ghana in West Africa and I came to live in the UK when I was two years old. Growing up, I knew that my people and others like them would often wear bright coloured patterned fabric to parties, weddings and funerals. I knew that the fabric was usually just called “cloth” and occasionally “kente”. 

I didn’t see anyone but Africans wear this fabric back then, and I learned to be a bit embarrassed by it because it further signalled us out as different. Sadly, back then racial attitudes abounded and went largely unchecked – black people and Africans in particular, suffered many racial slurs and ignorant comments. 

As I grew older and more comfortable with my heritage, I began seeing the beauty of this cloth and how the beautiful women in my life would wear it in gorgeous, fitted garments; but my body issues and low self-esteem meant that I didn’t want to wear such a fabric that demanded to be noticed.

It has only been in more recent years when my love for sewing collided with my need to feel more connected to my culture that I have fallen in love with this cloth commonly known as Ankara or wax print. Sewing my own clothes has also boosted my self-esteem and I love to wear fabric that screams to be noticed!

Ten Things to Try if You Don't Have Enough Fabric for Your Sewing Project

You’ve got your heart set on a particular pattern and fabric combination… but then you check the pattern envelope and disaster strikes! You don’t have quite enough material to make it.

What do you do if you don’t have enough fabric for your sewing project?

Don’t ditch your dreams just yet – Tilly’s here with ten suggestions to try which may just help you make your me-made dreams come to life after all…

    1. Take the cutting layout with a pinch of salt

When sewing pattern companies create cutting layout diagrams, we can’t include absolutely every scenario. For the sake of clarity and ease of use, as well as space limitations in instruction booklets, we usually bracket together a few pattern sizes, and include two common widths of fabric. 

On Tilly and the Buttons sewing patterns, we also include a small amount of contingency for fabric shrinkage or distorted grainlines.

Depending on which size you’re making, how wide your fabric is, how much or how little it’s shrunk when you pre-washed it, and which variation of the pattern you’re making, you may well be able to cut your pattern pieces out of less fabric than the envelope suggests. So it’s worth laying your pattern pieces out on the fabric to see if you can fit them on – perhaps by shuffling them around a little and squishing them together a little more.

You could also try folding the fabric a different way – for example, rather than creating one fold by bringing the selvedges together, you may be able to squeeze more pieces on by creating two folds that bring the selvedges towards the centre, or closer to one side.

You’ll feel like a boss if you do manage to squeeze the pattern pieces on after all!

Ten Tips for Cutting Fabric Accurately (with video!)

Ready to start your next sewing project? Sure you are! Before you dive into the sewing part, you first need to cut out your fabric. 

This is an important step to ensure the pieces go together perfectly and the shape and fit of your final project turn out fabulously.

So what's the best way to cut your fabric? Here are ten tips to keep in mind so you can make sure you're cutting out your next project as accurately as possible...

1) Prepare your fabric

Pre-washing your fabric is an important step that you shouldn't skip. If you're itching to get sewing, you may be tempted to start cutting out as soon as you have your fabric in your hands, but the risk is that your gorgeous finished garment will shrink the first time you wash it. So get any shrinkage out of the way first by laundering it on the settings you're planning to use for the finished garment.

Once it's dry, give it a good press (if the fabric can take it) to smooth out any creases. Ironing your fabric to get it nice and smooth will result in more accurately shapes.

Tips for Sewing with Sweatshirt Fabrics

When the weather gets cooler, sweatshirt fabric is one of my favourite materials to sew with. Not only does it make for the comfiest clothes, it’s also pretty easy to sew – woohoo! Sweatshirt fabrics – by which I mean sweatshirt fleece, loopback or French terry – generally have a low stretch percentage so, unlike many other knit fabrics, they are easy to cut, handle and stitch without stretching out of shape or creating rippled seams.

If you’re tempted to dive into the wonderful world of sweatshirt fabrics, I’m going to share my top tips for sewing with them. We also made a video summary of the main tips if you’d like a quickie version ;)

1) Choose an appropriate project and type of fabric

Sweatshirt fabrics are ideal for making casual clothes, loungewear and activewear. They trap warm air, so will keep you toasty in the winter, plus they are moisture-wicking, so perfect for your workout.

They usually have little stretch (although the amount does vary), so match them with a looser-fitting garment pattern that you can get on and off easily – maybe it has a zip opening, or you could make the neckband in a stretchier jersey ribbing.

There are a few different types of sweatshirt fabrics available. When shopping for them, it’s common to find fabric labelled as one of the following:

Tips for Sewing with Double Gauze Fabric (with Video!)

One of my all-time favourite fabrics to sew with is double gauze. Not only does it make for the most scrumptiously soft and lovely-to-wear clothing, it is also pretty simple to sew once you get your head round how to handle its unique properties.

We get a lot of questions about how to sew with double gauze, so I thought I’d share my top tips with you… and hopefully inspire you to give it a try if you haven’t yet done so!

What is double gauze fabric?

This material is made up of two layers of fine, open weave cotton gauze. The layers are held together at regular intervals with teensy stitches, leaving a suggestion of air trapped between them. The result is lightweight but not thin, airy yet snuggly, and almost squishy to the touch in some cases. As I often say, it’s like wearing a cloud!

It has a naturally crinkly texture to it, which you can press out if you like, or leave in for a more distinctive look.



Back when I first started sewing, I associated double gauze with gorgeous (and expensive to import) Japanese Kokka prints. Since then, more and more fabric companies have added this lovely substrate to their range, so you can find a wider range of designs in a wider range of shops.

Sounds dreamy? Read on for my tips! Or watch the video for a condensed version of the tips…

Ten Tips For Sewing A Wool Coat

What do we want? Coats! When do we want them? Now!

Personally, I find one of the only consolations of the weather getting a bit chilly is wearing - and making - a lovely, snuggly coat. However, making a coat usually involves sewing with some kind of wool, or wool-type coating, which is a material lots of sewists will be unfamiliar with, and can therefore seem a little bit intimidating. The good news is it's so much easier to work with a coating fabric than you'd think - yay!

Before we get started, let's talk a bit about coating fabric. Coating refers to fabric suitable for coat or jacket making. There are loads of different coating options available - you can buy a 100% wool coating or a blend with one or more different materials, such as viscose (rayon) or polyester. You also can also buy coating fabrics without any wool content whatsoever. Our Eden coat kits come with a super soft wool type fabric which also makes them vegan friendly :)

There are quite a few different coating options out there so if you're ordering online I'd advise to order a swatch of fabric so you can have a closer look before purchasing.  If you want a bit more info on the different types of coatings available, such as boiled wool, cashmere or boucle, check out our fabric suggestions blog post for our fave coat pattern ever, the Eden coat and jacket.

Whilst sewing a winter coat is quite time consuming it's totally worth it for the amount of wear you'll get out of it, as you can wear it all autumn and winter long. Actually, if cared for properly (and not nibbled at by hungry moths!) a good coat can last for many years. That's a lot of opportunites for you to proudly say "why yes, I made it myself".

So, are you ready to learn some top tips about sewing with wool coating? Let's get cracking.

Five Ways to Use Up Your Scraps

Sustainable sewing is a hot topic at the moment and you might have found yourself questioning whether there are any ways you can make a difference in your sewing practice.

When you cut out your fabric, there will inevitably be some wastage. Many pieces can feel like they are too big to throw away and that there must be something you can do with them. Pattern designers will always try to be as efficient with the cutting layout as possible, but just as with RTW, there will be some bits that could languish in the bin.

As avid watchers of the Great British Sewing Bee, we really enjoyed the episode on sustainability and dressmaking. Patrick Grant said that 30% of all our fabric is wasted - wow! Our unused fabric scraps are likely to either linger in a drawer or end up in the bin. So what can we do with these little pieces of fabrics?

If you are looking for small ways to make your sewing practice more sustainable, we've pulled together five projects ideas to help you use them up these unloved pieces of fabric. You could prep a batch of pockets for upcoming makes (because every me-made needs pockets!), and bias binding to make your garments look as pretty on the inside as they do on the outside.

1. Make your own bias binding

Ten Tips for Sewing Rainwear Fabrics

Want to get stuck into sewing a raincoat? There are more and more amazing water repellent fabrics coming onto the market for home sewists to get the hands on. And our Eden coat sewing pattern is the perfect accompaniment, taking you through the steps to making a gorgeous raincoat or jacket.

If you’ve never sewn with waterproof or water repellent fabrics before, here are some tips on what to look out for, how to handle the materials, and stitching tips to get a great result.



1) Choosing your fabric

There are lots of different types of rainwear fabrics on the market, and more and more of them are becoming available to home sewists to buy. Which is great! However, be aware that they can vary wildly in weight, content, feel and how they behave when you cut and sew them.

How they perform in the rain will be one of the main factors to consider when choosing what to buy. If you want to sew something that will keep you dry in a full-on downpour, take a look at waterproof fabrics such as PUL and Goretex. They are proper performance fabrics that won’t let rain through the fibres… but on the downside they can feel very synthetic and aren’t breathable – so you may get a little sticky!

If you’re not planning on wearing your handmade raincoat on a mountaineering expedition and just want something cute that will wear well on a short rainy walk, try a fabric that is “water resistant” or “water repellent” rather than “waterproof”. The waxed cotton in our Eden sewing kits is one such fabric – it may not withstand a tropical storm but will keep the rain off you on your commute to work or a gentle country walk.

Knowing what all the different rainwear fabric names mean can certainly feel a little confusing. If you’re buying online and aren’t sure what to get, see if you can order a couple of sample swatches to get a feel for what you like before buying.