Author: Kristin

June Garment Photos

Another month has flown by-hope you are enjoying the wonderful spring (for a day or two yet) weather and some fun summer sewing projects.
A big thanks to Kathy and Cheri for filling in for Kristin (China vacation) and filling in gaps for Laurel after her mother passed away. Our condolences to Laurel and her family.

Kathy and Cheri took a cue from our current Club challenge-mini wardrobe building-and showed us how easy it can be to have many outfits with just a few pieces.

Kathy's Mixit Jacket

Kathy's Mixit Tank

Kathy's Trio Tee

Kathy's Scarf (instructions in next blog)
Cheri's By Popular Demand Jacket and Ikina Pant
Cheri's Pure & Simple Shell
Jacket, Shell and Swing Skirt
Pant Design Addition
Debbie's Liverpool Shirt
Debbie's Vest
Fabric Embellishment Detail
Debbie's Summer Nightgown
Godet Detail
Laurel's Blouse

Happy Summer Sewing! How about some competition for the Gingher Scissors (prize for the mini wardrobe challenge :))

Seven of Eleven Flights

We managed the subway from our Shanghai hotel to the airport with a little help from a local retired engineering professor. Now we’re in Shijiazhuang where my daughter has been living for almost a year. Quite a change from the wonderful hotels we’ve been in and the cleanliness of Shanghai. I have a new respect for her.
Wireless availability was spotty in our previous destinations. The Shanghai hotel decided to charge for Internet during the Expo.
I bought silk at the factory store in Suzhou, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary-just nice silk. Touched some great wool and cashmere at the custom tailor suit shop in the hotel.
Fashion here is interesting. I can’t say that I’ve been seeing the elite walking the streets of Shanghai. I have seen plenty of big name designer stores along the Bund. Chinese women seem to go for colorful patterns, sheer synthetics and metallic embellishment. Wearing sandals with hose (footies, knee high or rolled) are seen everywhere. And to be fair this is representative of the tourist class, but I guess that would include myself. Chinese women are usually dressed modestly as coverage goes and they don’t seem to perspire!
We spent our free Friday in Shanghai at the Expo from 9 am to 9 pm. Rode the special subway into the park-managed to see 10 country exhibits. It was a drizzly day-the ony one of our trip but only 70 degrees so quite nice. We figured the crowds would be smaller because of the rain but a record attendance of 377,000 was set that day! The scary part ish

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Hello from Hangzhou

Alive and very well in China. I have eaten eighteen kinds of dumplings in one meal, climbed the Great Wall and seen more umbrellas (parasols, maybe) in the last five days than in my entire life. And the trip isn’t quite half over.
Wonderful people (my fourteen traveling companions are all wonderful) and beautiful placess to see. But enough words-here are some pictures.

May Garment Pictures

What a great month we had! Lots of new people at Treadle-we hope you liked what you saw. Lots of show and tell. The weather even improved as the week went on. So here are the garment pictures-any good photographers out there? We’re learning as we go with the picture taking technique but we hope the pics help you remember what the pattern looked like when you have questions.

Debbie's Jacket

Debbie's blouse

Debbie's pleat front tee

Laurel's ruffle tee

Laurel's bias skirt

Laurel's button tee

Kristin's blue/black cardigan with Maggy London (Butterick 5456) dress

Reversible Blouse

Ruffle tee with buttons

Peggy Sager's Blouse

Back of Maggy London dress

Marcy Tilton V8582 tee

Happy Sewing-see you next month! First time attendees are free so bring a friend.

Good Sewing Weather

For those of us that love to sew AND garden, we’ve been given a bit of a reprieve. This gloomy, cold weather makes it easy to stay inside and get creative. It seems I have lots of ideas and get things done but then when I go to my closet-there’s nothing to wear!

Sewing for Paris gave me great go-to outfits for winter but now with this new season it seems I’m starting from scratch. I sew something and finish it and then question whether the garment fits my lifestyle right now. Let’s not even talk about whether I have the shoes, undergarments, etc! How do people look put together all the time?

To that end, and because I am working on my travel wardrobe for China, we’ll be offering up a challenge for the summer months. Come to Fashion Sewing Club next week and find out the rules and regulations (or you can make up your own rules). And come with suggestions for how you put your sewn garments together so that you have things to wear.

For those of you with iPhones, Sara posted a comment about Pattern Pal. I uploaded (or did I download:) it and have been giving it a try. It costs $3.99 which is a bit on the more expensive side but I compare that with the cost of a pattern and you know where that gets me. The app allows you to take a picture of your pattern and gives you lists of pattern companies, notions, a place to enter yardage, etc. You have to add words (like 18″ zipper, shoulder pads) but then it will appear as an option next time so over time you accumulate a good list of options. The patterns can be sorted by number, company, type and a few others so that’s easy. You still can’t zoom the picture which would be good for seeing the back of the pattern envelope. You can enter two photos so you could also include the fabric you have used. I had a few problems with the app closing as I was entering data which was annoying. Otherwise it seems to be a good option. I think I’d still like it as part of Fabric Stash so it would all be in one place. If you try the app, be sure to go to the site and post your review of it. That way maybe they’ll give us what we want in updates.

We still have room in the Saturday, May 8, Beach Cover Up/Robe Class if you are interested.

That’s all for now, I’ve got to get back up to my machines! Happy Sewing and Happy Mother’s Day if it applies!

April Garment Photos and more

April was a great month-lots of show and tell and information from many of you. We love to see what you’ve sewn and hope that what we do is inspiring you to get to your machines and create wonderful garments for yourselves and others.

Here are the pictures-we missed a few so I’ll add them when I can get back home and photograph them.

Faux Wrap Tee

Easy to Sew Dress

Sporty Skirt and Stripe/Dot Tee

Tie Sweater

Wool Knit Top

I missed a picture for Laurel’s pillowcases but here are a few links from Nancy at the Associated group that give video instructions for making the pillowcases:
Pillowcase Tutorial
Sausage Pillowcase

LaVonne recommended www.homesew.com for great notions, etc.

And then there was Show and Tell!

Inside of Cheri's Verona Jacket

Mary's oliver + s patterns

Becky's Shawl/Vest

Click for more information on the Verona jacket or oliver + s patterns. All are highly recommended.

The shawl/vest that Becky showed was something she copied from ready to wear and got many oohs and aahs. Here is a picture of the garment laid flat. The edges are unfinished but she had another one with a neckband and finished hems.

Here are the dimensions for the garment as many of you requested. You will have to adjust for your body but this should be a good start.

Rectangle is 25 1/2″ x 45″. Inside “rectangle” is 8″ x 17″. Fabric is a mid to light weight knit. Put it on as if the one inside hole were the two armholes.

Happy sewing! Check out the new calendar (click on Calendar above). See you in May.

Wouldn’t it be cool

if there was an iPhone app that would allow us to keep track of our patterns and our stash?

I know there are a few of you out there with iPhones or their cousins. Cheri told me about MyStyle which is an app that allows you to take pictures of your clothes and make outfits, even wish lists of what you’d like to buy. Thinking it would be fun/useful to catalog my stash I looked around at the App store and found several. Fabric Calc is $14.99-a really high priced yardage converter app for industrial sewists. There is a cheaper ($2.99) version for the personal sewist-Yardage Calc. Fortuny, a very cool Italian fabric manufacturer has a free app that features their fabrics and you can order samples. May be an affordable option for a fabric fix-just browse through the app instead of Treadle! But the two that looked closest to what I wanted were Fabric Stash ($4.99) and Fabric Journal ($1.99). I like the looks of Fabric Stash better but will try both of them for ease of use, etc. (I can’t link any of these apps, just go to iTunes and click on App Store.)

What seems sorely lacking is an app to organize my pattern stash! My son, the geek, told me to blog about it and then go to the other apps and make suggestions and maybe someone would pick up the idea and run with it. So here’s the blog. You may add your own dreams to the wishlist:

Dream Sewist’s Stash App

~Allows you to enter your patterns from the big companies down to the obscure designers
~AND (and this is big) will download the information and picture from the pattern envelope in a font size that will allow you to read it-you won’t need to enter all that info-OK, I’d be happy with front and back views, yardage and notions needed
~AND (another big one) if the pattern company isn’t available or the pattern is out of print, an option for photographing the pattern envelope and an easy format way of entering the needed info-yardage, notions, etc.
~A wish list of patterns to buy
~Ability to comment on the patterns
~It would be really sweet if this was part of a fabric stash app and then you could match the fabric to the pattern and vice versa

Enough of dreaming, I need to get to work on April’s garments and Easter plans. I found a new blog that I spent way too much time looking at-but love! Fashion for Nerds. And here’s a great scarf tying video from the Sartorialist.

Treadle(link to their new blog) is having a sale from April 1-11. Don’t miss it!

Happy Easter from the Material Girls

March Fashion Sewing Club Garments

The March installment of Club brings a wide variety of garments-






And some great Sew and Tell-

Cheri is wearing the new Louise Cutting's new My Heart's A' Flutter

Fashion Sewing Club meets monthly and features garments with design changes, pattern review and sew and tell. All are welcome. Cost is $10. Click on Club to see dates, times and locations.

Christopher Straub at the Sampler

Seven Material Girls drove all the way to Chanhassen on March 12 to listen to Christopher Straub, a Shakopee resident, of Project Runway-Season 6 fame. He entertained about 30 of us with an informal question and answer format and had a great drawing for two of his handbag designs. None of the Material Girls won 😦

Christopher is now designing bags of all kinds and will also have a new line of garments to show at MN Fashion Week.

The Sampler will be hosting Valori Wells, a fabric designer for Free Spirit, on May 19th from 5-7 pm. Cost is $30 and they’re promising more great giveaways.