Fabric Shopping for the Rosa Shirt + Dress

Making the Rosa shirt or dress? Let's talk fabrics!

This pattern works well in so many easy-to-find fabrics. Look for a medium- or light-weight woven material - cotton lawn, chambray, lighter weight denim (including denims with a bit of stretch), linen blends (less prone to wrinkling than pure linen!), viscose / rayon (although it's not the easiest fabric to sew the collar in if you're not that confident), double gauze, shirting cotton (of course!), even fine needlecord.

For our shirt sample, we used a floaty flamingo viscose from Dragonfly Fabrics (now sold out - sorry!). On the dress version, we used a lightweight denim courtesy of Fabrics Galore. We used contrast fabric on the inner collar stand and button stand facing - Ciara B cotton lawn, courtesy of Liberty.


When deciding what fabric to choose, it's helpful to stare at the technical drawing (above) and let your imagination run free. How would it look in different colours? What sorts of prints would you love to wear it in? Do you want to add any decorative features, such as a contrast button stand facing and inner collar stand, piped seams or embroidered yokes?

Another tip - as the princess seams break up both the front and back bodice, a smaller print is better than a larger one, so you don't have to spend ages matching the print at the seams :)

Here are a few lovely ideas we've found around the internet. Please bear in mind that we haven’t personally handled most of the fabrics in this post - so it’s worth requesting a sample to check it's not too heavy for a shirt and that the colour is how it looks on screen.

Take a look at the pattern info for how much fabric you'll need.

Clockwise from top left:

Red linen viscose chambray / Daisy chambray denim

Rose cotton linen mix / Royal blue chambray dots

Clockwise from top left:

Liberty Tana lawn / Liberty wild flowers Tana lawn

Ditsy floral fine needlecord / Painterly Bloomed double gauze

Clockwise from top left:

Flamingo cotton lawn / Foliage linen viscose

Birds and branches / Teal foliage linen mix

Clockwise from top left:

Fuschia cotton / Dusky pink fine needlecord

Dark mustard denim / Coral linen mix

Clockwise from top left: 

Bunting denim chambray / Deep blue linen

Navy and white printed cotton / Linen chambray

What fabric are you planning to make your Rosa shirt or dress in? We'd love to see - tag us on Instagram @TillyButtons #SewingRosa :)

PS. There's still time to grab your place on our new online workshop, Sew Your Own Shirt or Shirt Dress!