Thursday, April 14, 2011

Binding Fringe on Tweed or Matka

One way to to achieve the perfect effect as you design your fashions is to create distinctive details. We've featured examples in earlier blog posts where clients of Fine Fabrics have used fabric selvages in unique ways to create trim that is perfectly coordinated, fresh, lively and delightfully apropos.

Tweed or matka fabrics, those that are woven using wide threads, are perfect for fringing. The large fibers of the warp, easily pull loose from their weft, and visa versa. The fabric is so easy to fringe that it is necessary to run stitches to stop the process, or the piece will deconstruct on its own.

It can be fun to use a complementary or contrasting trim to stop or set the fringed edge. However, the complexity of a tweed or matka can make it difficult to find a trim that not only matches, but also does not get lost or overpower the fabric.

The texture of the weave, the colors, and the body of the fabric that Ms. Fine Fabrics is working with here, made it essential that the trim not over power the finished piece, yet at the same time, it needs to have a deliberate presence, one that says "of course, it's perfect."

She chose to  construct a trim by deconstructing the fabric into fringe and bind it with perfectly coordinating strips of the fabric itself. Since the dominant colors in the fabric are dark, she decided to highlight the fringe by using a strip of the color that had the highest contrast, the only light color in the weave, the peach. As high as the contrast, it is subtle because it is the exact same color and texture as repeated throughout the weave iof the fabric.

She created the binding by cutting strips of the peach colored fibers, then laid them over the fabric at the point out where she wanted the fringing to stop.


Then using a zig-zag stitch set as wide as the cut strips, and thread the color of a dominant dark shade in the fabric, she secured the peach strips down to the fabric. 

To maintain a balanced proportion to the effect of the trim on the dress, she varied the fringe detail, a single row along princess and shoulder lines, double rows at the sleeve hem, three rows at the hemline and a collection filling the neckline.

Some tweed and matka with which this effect might be used currently available at FineFabrics.com, with more to come, are:

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