The Fabric Weights Edition
- Rosie Jones
- 4 hours ago
- 5 min read
Welcome to Sew & Tell, our new weekly edit landing every Wednesday. Inside you’ll find sewing tips, clever tricks, inspiration for when your sewjo is hiding, and plenty of answers to your burning questions.
Each week, we’ll spotlight one question from our community - so if there’s something you’ve been wondering about your sewing projects, just get in touch and let us know. Everything we share is designed to help you sew with more confidence.
This week we are diving into fabric weights and trust me there's a lot to share!
✂️ Tip of the Week - understanding fabric weight
One of the biggest differences in how a garment looks, feels, and hangs comes down to fabric weight and once you understand it, choosing fabric becomes so much easier.
Fabric weight is usually measured in grams per square metre (GSM), which simply tells you how heavy or light a fabric is. The higher the number, the heavier the fabric.
As a general guide, lightweight fabrics sit around 50–150gsm.These tend to be soft, floaty, and full of movement. Think viscose, rayon, chiffon, silk (including lighter silk charmeuse), and fine cotton lawns. These fabrics are perfect for summer dresses and skirts, loose blouses, and anything designed to have drape and flow or lots of gathers.
Medium weight fabrics sit around 150–350gsm and are your most versatile group. This is where you’ll find cotton poplins, chambray, polycottons, linens and linen blends, lightweight denim, light wool and wool blends, lighter corduroy, fleece and sweatshirt fabric. These fabrics are ideal for shirts, everyday dresses, skirts with a bit of structure, jumpers and trousers.
Heavyweight fabrics are generally 350gsm and above and include denim, canvas, upholstery-weight fabrics, heavier wool and wool blends and leatherettes. These are more structured fabrics that hold their shape well and are perfect for jackets, coats, structured trousers, skirts, bags, and more substantial makes.
The important thing to remember is that fabric weight isn’t about better or worse, it’s about what you want your finished garment to do. Even a straightforward pattern can behave very differently depending on fabric choice. A skirt made in a structured cotton will feel very different to the same design made in a drapey viscose or silk
Once you start matching fabric weight to your project, your sewing becomes much more predictable.
🧵 This Week’s Make Inspiration:
We’ve had some gorgeous new fabrics land in the studio this week, and they couldn’t have come at a better time.
Think lightweight cottons, soft drapey viscose prints, and easy-wear fabrics that feel perfect for summer sewing, just in time for the sun to come out too!
A few ideas we’re loving right now:
Floaty viscose prints paired with simple gathered skirts or relaxed dresses
Lightweight cottons perfect for shirts, tops, and easy summer separates
Bold prints that turn simple patterns into statement pieces
Patterns we are eyeing up to go with our new fabrics
The new fabrics are all up on the website now and we’re already seeing some beautiful choices coming through in orders.
🧵 Workshop Spotlight - Sew The Perfect Summer Skirt
If you’re looking for a satisfying summer make, this is it.
Our Sew The Perfect Summer Skirt workshop using the Luella skirt pattern is designed to guide you through making a wearable, flattering gathered and tiered skirt from start to finish, with plenty of support along the way.
It’s a brilliant project if you want to build confidence with dressmaking and actually create something you’ll wear all summer long.
The timing couldn’t be better either, with our new fabric collection full of lightweight, drapey prints that work beautifully for this style.
A really enjoyable make, and a great next step if you’re ready to start building your handmade wardrobe.
⭐ Sewing Machine Spotlight: Janome MC1000 Sewing & Embroidery Machine
If you’ve ever been curious about embroidery but didn’t want a separate machine (or something overly complicated), this one is such a game changer.
The Janome MC1000 is a combined sewing and embroidery machine, meaning you can switch between everyday sewing and embroidery in seconds using the swing-out embroidery arm.
Despite being compact, it’s packed with features that make sewing smoother, easier, and a lot more enjoyable:
300 built-in stitches including buttonholes and alphabets for garment sewing
241 built-in embroidery designs so you can start creating straight away
Full colour touchscreen for easy stitch and design selection
On-screen editing to resize, combine, and personalise designs
Automatic needle threader and thread monitoring to make setup stress-free
Bright LED lighting so you can clearly see what you’re doing
Why we love it (and why it’s perfect for summer sewing)
This machine is brilliant because it grows with you.
For summer sewing, it handles all your everyday makes beautifully from lightweight cotton tops to floaty skirts but it also gives you the option to add something extra.
Think:
adding embroidered details to a simple summer top
personalising pockets, hems, or waistbands
creating completely unique garments from simple patterns
It’s also ideal if you’ve been wanting to try embroidery but felt a bit intimidated everything is built in, guided, and designed to be easy to use, so you can start experimenting straight away without needing loads of extra equipment.
If you’re looking for a machine that helps you sew confidently and expand your creativity at the same time, this is a really exciting option, pop us an email to arrange a machine demo.
Price £1199
FAQ: Why does my fabric move around or slip when I’m sewing?
This is especially common with lighter, drapey fabrics like viscose and silk, and it can feel really frustrating when the fabric just won’t behave the way you want it to.
Usually it comes down to a combination of fabric type, needle choice, and how the fabric is being guided through the machine.
A few simple things that can make a big difference:
Using the right needle (a fine, sharp needle for lightweight fabrics size 70 or 80)
Slowing down slightly and letting the machine feed the fabric rather than pulling it
Supporting the fabric as it goes through, especially at the start of a seam
Pins, pins and more pins! You can even try hand basting your seams together first. If using pins make sure they are fine and sharp so as not to pucker your fabric.
The good news is this is a skill that improves really quickly with the right guidance, and once it clicks, sewing with these fabrics becomes so much more enjoyable.
❓ Got a sewing question you’d love us to answer? Share it with us - it might inspire next week’s email!
That’s it for this week’s Sew & Tell! I hope you’ve found a little inspiration, a handy tip, or a spark to get back into your sewing projects.
Until next Wednesday, happy sewing!
Rosie xxx
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