Feature Fabric of the Week - Laminated Cotton Spot

Thinking of making some Christmas gifts in the fourteen (fourteen?!? That's FOURTEEN!!!) days left before the jolly red man arrives? Just arrived in-store is this laminated cotton in navy, sky blue, green, pink, black and red. Perfect for aprons, pencil cases, totes, coin purses, bibs, make-up bags, tablecloths, a kiddie raincoat and hat. Or if you're a messy eater, you could even make a wipe-down frock. Oh man, the possibilities are endless....

Available in all stores and soon to be on-line.

Lx

Alex's hand-painted silks

I have something I wanted to show you. What do you think of these handpainted silk designs that a very young and talented Alex created back in high school (she's now in her early 20s)? Her mother Eva has made every single design into garments and you can sometimes find her in them at Tessuti Surry Hills....they're truly incredible!

Alex handpaints on silk habutai, crepe de chine, georgettes, duppions and raw tussah silk on natural or coloured bases. Using silk fabric paints and gutta to outline her designs.



These designs below have been hand-painted on silk crepe de chine and the spot design is on silk duppion.







Anyone interested ( DT students too) in learning to hand paint on silk or to have a one-off design created for you .. can email Alex - amlodziejewski@gmail.com

Pattern Review - Vogue 8530

For any of you wondering about Emma (who is living in Singapore these days) I recently received an email from her including these pics of her with Zac who's now 9 months ...sheeesh time flies! Life in Singas definitely agrees with them don't you think?

Apparently Emma's had to sew up a few more cool and summery pieces for the hot days...and nights!!! Here's a great dress made up in our 100% cotton Eyeball Garden in Vogue 8530 with no changes made except for the length and a self belt added and says that the pattern was 'great and very simple'. I've seen this pattern made up in a jersey knit by Katherine, love that it works so well in wovens too.



Missing you Emma and I'll be working on getting you some samples soon. We hope you have a glorious 1st Christmas with Zac.

xxx

Thankyou Lisa!

Have I told you enough times that I loooove my earrings?

xxx

Daily Sewing Book - Lemon Licorice slip dress

This is my first venture into the world of Japanese Pattern Books, an easy slip dress pattern (#G.02 from Daily Sewing Book) made up in our Italian 100% silk crepe de chine Lemon Licorice. I love the print and wanted to make it up for last Saturday's Christmas party - but as usual I left it to the absolute last minute and had to find something quick and easy to whip up in a day!!!!!




And this pattern was perfect for that - first thing Saturday morning I traced out the pattern onto our spot'n'cross paper, adding seam allowances and pivoting extra width and flare to the hem of the dress - slightly more in the front than back - similar to a dress I had. It was easy enough to work out what pattern pieces I needed from the diagrams and referenced back to Label Free's post on translated Japanese terms. I cut out the largest size (size 11) but although it still worked out in this style I'm sure that next time I'll make it a size smaller.



I then cut out the crepe de chine sandwiched between spot and cross paper - to stop the fabric from slipping off grain and to have the bias strips cut evenly. The dress took hardly anytime to sew up and I love wearing it, just perfect to wear during our hot and humid summer days and looks great worn with heels, as it does with my new favourite Lombok plaited strap sandals. Now i just have to work out what to make for the Tessuti Melbourne Christmas party and give myself a bit more time...wishful thinking :-)

Ladies and ladies, we have a winner...

Congrats to Vicki, our Blog Anniversary Giveaway winner!

"Happy 2nd Blog Birthday :-) My most used pattern is Vogue 7802, a great Betzina A-Line skirt that I must have made about 4 times in various Tessuti stretch denims - it is a very flattering cut with nice seam detail panels. Vicki"

Vicki, I'll be in touch with you soon!

We were thrilled with all the comments (a Sew Tessuti record!) and I've been thoroughly enjoying my introduction to a whole lot of new patterns and tips. Hope you have too.

xx

Tessuti Sydney -2009 Christmas Party

What a fabulous balmy summers evening we had last night, just perfect for our Tessuti Christmas party. We had fun sipping yummy cocktails at Christo's bar and then headed across the road to Vamps for dinner. Some posts about the Tessuti creations to follow. For more photos check out our Flickr page.

xxx

Ps We missed our Melbourne girls, but we're looking forward to celebrating with them at Seamstress in a couple of weeks :-)

Blog Anniversary Giveaway

Today marks Sew Tessuti's 2nd birthday! Hip hip hurray.

To celebrate, we're organising a great giveaway. Simply leave a comment about a favourite pattern that you've used more than once or twice (and why you love it) or give us a handy/favourite sewing tip or website. We'll have the random generator draw one lucky winner who will receive a $100 voucher towards a fabric purchase of your choice from our online fabric store. Postage - anywhere in the world - is on us. Simple as that!

All local and international comments are welcome and if you're a non-blogger, please leave your comment under Anonymous along with your email address so that I can get in touch with you. Comments will be received until 12pm AEST on Tuesday 1st December and the winner will be announced shortly thereafter.

Good luck everyone :-)

xx

Fabric Feature and Pattern of the Week - Raining Petals and Vogue 1027

A week ago the girls from the Tessuti Melbourne store uploaded some photos into our Flickr group. Have you seen this? How gorgeous is Rachel's dress made up in cotton jersey knit Raining Petals and dress pattern Vogue 1027?

This 100% cotton knit has only a slight one-way stretch and still worked wonderfully in this style, despite the requested †† Two-way Stretch Knits on the pattern. The fabric suggestions help but wouldn't it be the most ideal fabric store to have every single bolt of fabric sitting alongside a suitable (and up-to-date) garment made from it???



See more of Vogue 1027 here.

New buttons in store!

We received a delivery of new buttons in the Melbourne store this afternoon.


Needless to say, we've been drooling over them all and planning how we can incorporate them into our sewing projects.

They are available in all Tessuti stores.

More Vogue 8380

Remember an earlier post about Vogue 8380, when Emma modified this sundress pattern to create a gorgeous silk maxi maternity dress for her baby shower?

Today I got to see Michelle's great version made up in Tessuti's 100% cotton hailspot 'Black Rain' trimmed with contrast cotton print straps sans bow. Nothing like cotton sundresses to wear in this heat, plus this style is very flattering and ' easy-peasy to make' says Michelle, in fact she has re-made this pattern up a few more times since. Definitely one to add to the pattern stash before they discard it.





Ps Thanks again Michelle and I hope to have more of your projects featured here again :-)

Whitehouse Institute of Design - Fashion Graduates 2009 Parade

Congratulations to all the talented 2009 graduate fashion students from Whitehouse Institute of Design. Last night's parade was fabulous. We're used to seeing the students sourcing their fabrics throughout the year, and it's always a thrill to see the end result.