This post may contain affiliate links. Read my Disclosure Policy to learn more.

Sewing with fine lightweight woven cottons – 5 tips to save time and prevent you from pulling out your hair

I recently had the pleasure of sewing a Burda top with Cloud9 Avila cotton lawn. This was my first time sewing with diaphanous batiste like fabric and I learned a lot. A lot! I survived the experience with some pearls of wisdom to share. Here are my 5 tips for getting the best out of finer fabrics like this cotton lawn and similar ultra-lightweight fabrics (batiste, voile and chiffon).

1. Sew with sharp needles

They need a very sharp sewing machine needle – the needle memory on this fabric was quite strong in the sense that due to the fineness of the fabric the holes were distinct when the thread was removed. So I highly recommend using sharps needles.

2. Reduce thread tension

Similarly, check your sewing machine tension as they easily pucker and you can’t really press it out. I had to reduce my tension by 1 point to get a pucker free seam.

3. Reduce stitch length

Additionally I had to reduce my stitch length from my usual 2.5 to 2.0 to get an even stitch that didn’t look like I was trying to gather it.

See also: 5 Simple Ideas to Improve Sewing Room Ergonomics

4. Change needle plate or use stabilising paper

If you can change the needle plate to a straight stitch one then do so because this fabric very fine it can easily get pulled into the feed dogs especially at the beginning of sewing a seam. You know that thing that happens and you feel like the machine is trying to ‘eat’ your fabric. If your machine doesn’t come with a straight stitch needle plate then don’t worry, you can easily use tearaway stabilising paper and it did the trick.

5. Test Sewing

To wrap up I can’t emphasize this enough – do some test sewing on a scrap. Once I had the setting correct for the fabric, sewing it was a pure joy. I am very partial to fabric that responds well to a steam iron and this fabric just loves the iron.