A post from Carrie in California-

I confess, I have a secret dream to take my love of sewing from a hobby to a business, so I can get paid to do what I love. However, one of the glitches to this idea is that I don’t have a fashion degree, no time spent apprenticing under a professional, or well known design school name on my college degree. I’m a home sewer who loves to take classes and enjoys learning from a community of experienced sewers. So, in order to bridge what I see as a gap, I’ve been looking around for ways to quickly become educated to a level that I can sew for myself and others with RTW like results. As we all know – the holy grail of fine quality sewing is correct fit. Just search Amazon “sewing fitting books” and you will find at least 243 results. I’m sure we all have some of these in our home libraries- I have at least 6. I’ve also looked for seminars, which suits me because I’m more of a hands on kind of learner. There are several well known names who offer fitting classes. However, most classes focus on learning how to fit yourself. But my fitting issues are not the same as someone else; so learning how to fit the most common adjustments will be important in order to sew for others. In my search I found there are a few options for fitting instructor training. Palmer Pletsch offers training in their pattern based fitting method. But I was more attracted to what Silhouette Patterns offers – which is muslin based fitting. The Silhouettes seminar is 3 1/2 days including instruction and hands on experience fitting others. I signed up for this class in Dec, and have been looking forward to it since! The preparation for this seminar includes making at least 9 muslins, covering the basic silhouettes: top, jacket, pant, dress and skirt. It’s a lot of work to make 9 muslins, but each one takes only a few hours. It takes a little extra time to extend each length wise seam to 1 inch, but the actual sewing using a long stitch length goes pretty fast. I paced the prework out over a month -and have now completed all of the muslins. Here is a picture of my completed work bagged up and ready to take to Dallas, TX! I’ve now worked with at least 9 Silhouette patterns and haven’t run into any issues of pieces not fitting together or major construction issues. However, from past experience, I know that sometimes the instructions are written for an experienced sewer, in that some details are left off – for example how to finish the hem on the wrap skirt. The instructions for making the muslins were much the same – the exact instructions could be confusing to a beginner, but if you have some experience sewing – it’s easy to get the gist of the message and work from there.
At this point, just a few days away, I’m not sure if I’m more excited to have a new wardrobe of 9 patterns that have been specifically fit to me, or developing the skill of being able to fit others 😉
More to come, I promise to wrap up with a note during the training itself, and one after the training.
Also, if you have any comments or experience sewing for others, or helpful learning regarding fitting others- please add a comment below.

An email from one of our contributors:

Hi Ladies,

Just pushed my kid off the computer! He will be getting HIS tomorrow, in reward for getting a decent grade on the AP US History test. He knows the topic ad nauseum. All I know is that Columbus discovered America and was a great guy! (Reciting that fact gets my kid started on a rant…LOL!)

Okay, now that we know that I know nothing….

Look at this picture of Peggy Sagers pattern #4509 – Run Away Dress (July’s Pattern of the Month). I don’t know about you, but my 1st reaction to seeing this pattern envelope is that it looks like Faye Dunaway in the 1967 flick, Bonnie and Clyde, as Bonnie. Naturally, by calling the dress “Run Away” it sets me up to see the thing in Bonnie’s hand as a pistol, carrying a bag of money, and a smile on her face saying, “One step closer and you’re history!”. Even though I was only 7 years old at the time, Faye was beautiful as ever and, if recalling correctly, wore floppy hats. I can’t shake that 1st image, so yes, Faye is posing for Peggy.

This is the pattern by Butterick that Peggy was copying, the 1952 Walk Away Dress. As Peggy explains in the latest webcast, Butterick came up with this quick and easy pattern that could be cut out at breakfast, sewn in the morning, and walked away in for lunch. (Breakfast must’ve been earlier in those days…say, 5am….) Peggy suggests heavy fabrics, like denim. Butterick suggests lighter weight. Next to the Butterick pattern is MY favorite rendition found on the internet in totally a period design found at http://www.edelweisspatterns.com/blog/?p=1030

Off to sew, until it gets dark. Then, it’s time for Night Time Practice Driving with aforementioned son…he has 9 1/2 hours left to fulfill Minnesota requirements. I never knew that I needed to put my life in danger, in order to get the kid to fly-the-coop….

Kenzie

Since Treadle was holding kids’ sewing camp on Tuesday, we held Fashion Sewing Club in the store. This shook things up a bit but in the end it seems to have added to our numbers. At least anyone coming in to the store knew what we were about. Over 30 people with more than 5 new people-and some of them brought show and tell.

Kristin headed to NYC to meet the soon-to-be in-laws so Cande Roberts tried her hand at getting up in front and highlighting the garments she made for the month. We really appreciate her efforts and hope you enjoyed the change of face 🙂 Make It Sew had fourteen for the day and then more copies were needed for the Saturday Treadle meeting as new faces showed up there too. Two sewists from Madison had been following us on the website and planned a weekend in the Twin Cities centered around fabric and sewing. The Saturday meeting was on their agenda so they brought garments for Show and Tell and were impressed with our format. Franchise, anyone?

And then just a few pictures from our adventurous students-
Irene brought in a whole sail from a sailboat-I know it doesn’t look like a sail but this is a racing sail-and went home with a bag that she’d seen for sale at a regatta. Of course, she knew she could make it for much less than the price tag.

Just a tee from Target but big satisfaction for a beginning sewist and mom who wants to make special and inexpensive birthday gifts.

Stay cool-move your sewing machine to the basement 🙂

From our California Material Girl…

That’s what I told Kristin when she suggested that I try on a dress that had been made for club. The dress had a large ruffle that went around a scoop neckline – Kristin may remember better than me the details. But all I saw was a large ruffle and being 5′ 3″ – it looked like I could be swallowed up by it! What would have been more accurate for me to say is, I don’t wear large ruffles – I know, silly rule – but don’t we all have some clothing rules? So, now that I’ve confessed to putting my foot in my mouth – here are a couple of garments where I’ve recently added ruffles to necklines.
I feel like there have been two large trends out there for awhile now – ruffles or the drape front look. I’m not much of a drape girl – again small in stature, I feel a bit enveloped by too much drape. I figure I can add a ruffle to any garment and keep it within my comfort level.

So, the first is a cardigan. This is the basic Kwik Sew pattern – once you get it fitted to your shoulder, arm and torso length – you’re good to go, add or change whatever you want- it’s easy with this pattern. I pulled the ruffle piece from Simplicity 2256. I had in mind this lush, double sided, purple knit that I picked up on the Sillouette NYC Fabric trip. I wanted some way to show off both shades of the fabric and I thought a ruffle could do that nicely. The ruffle from the Simplicity pattern was the perfect length and shape, the only adjustment I made was I wanted the edges to be left raw. I followed the pattern’s direction for construction of the neckline ruffle and I have to say – it was very difficult to gather two layers of knit fabric with a seam down the middle. If the fabric was any thicker I don’t know how you would do it. The instructions basically have a seam down the middle of the ruffle and your gathering stitch goes right along side that. After several attempts using a basting stitch on my machine, which kept breaking when I would try to gather the ruffle – I finally hand basted a gathering stitch. This was the most difficult part of the project. Once I had the gathering done, I just had to sew the ruffle to the finished neck line. Easier said than done – again I hand basted the ruffle to the neckline because it got “squirly” with the thickness of the ruffle – and not being able to see where you were attaching the ruffle to the neckline as you were sewing. My finished stitch line along the neck line is not so straight on the inside of the garment – but on the outside you can’t tell. In the end, I’m very happy with the finished cardigan. (the shell underneath is another NYC fabric. I used McCalls 5818- and turned the dress into a shell)

Next is a great tried and true Jalie pattern. I found this crazy fabric online – the description noted that it had a snake skin pattern – when it arrived it didn’t look exactly as I remembered. It was a bit crazier with pattern and color than I expected. I saw a top in a catalog with the flounce bottom and a ruffle around the top. I thought it would be easy to add a ruffle to this Jalie neckline. Well, the first thing I noticed after making up the top is that the Jalie version has a twist neckline and the RTW version did not have this added complexity. The other big difference I realized was that the Jalie pattern has a dipping neckline in the back – unlike the RTW which had a normal round neckline in back. Since I planned to use the Simplicity ruffle pattern again – it would not fit around the back neckline – it was too small and I had already cut it out leaving not enough fabric left over. So I figured I’ll just run a ruffle from the neck to the bustpoint – that didn’t work out so well. In the end I think the ITY jersey I used was too heavy to create a nice full ruffle – it just wanted to lay flat. So, I decided flat it is, and I made my ruffle into a flounce. I used the same pattern piece that is used to create the flounce down the midriff – cut it down a bit in width and added it to the neckline. I had to take out my shoulder seams and top stitching to have the ruffle start at the shoulders. I like the top and now I would be able to make this again quickly. I’d still like to make a version close to the RTW inspiration – but that will have to wait, other projects already ahead of that idea!
P.S. one little tip – lately I’ll carve out some sewing time and cut out 2 or 3 patterns in one setting. Then I have projects ready to go when I have the time to sew – I’ve found that helpful ; )
Both tops were inspired by Cabi – here is the inspiration and my version:

First there were girls’ dresses and such-



The rain capes are Raindrops by Fig Tree http://www.figtreeandco.com and fit sizes 4 – 10. Very popular.

and then there were shoes 🙂

and if one pair isn’t enough, here’s an article featuring the ten best low heels you need to own.
and wonderful garments (and not all at Treadle either but I didn’t do a very good job of capturing them on camera…

We promoted Bundles of Love and would like to pass on a quote from Opie, who never quite seems to make it to Club but is a faithful online follower (the May Club Sheets and Garment Photos have been added to the website.)

“Re “Bundles of Love” – as a nurse in one of the intensive care nurseries at Children’s Hosp of Minneapolis, I can attest to the wonderful benefit of these contributions – the mothers are truly touched – for many babies, these will be the only new – and certainly the only handmade – items they will ever receive! On behalf of the other nurses, I want to say Thank You to the women (and men?) who make this possible! Opie”

Thanks to all who attended Club and happy sewing!!

Club sheets and photos for April have been posted to the website under”Club Sheets/Garment Photos”. We were so pleased with attendance this month, given the fact that we made our major change from Hancock to Make It Sew. Make It Sew had coffee brewed Thursday morning and a cut of their wonderful knit for door prizes. Show and Tell was also robust at Make It Sew. Thanks for being so loyal to the 16 of you who came!

Treadle attendance on Tuesday morning hit a high of 28 and the Saturday morning meeting has caught on with 14 attending.

Here are a few highlights from Show and Tell. We also saw beautiful garments but they’re not as easy to catch on camera. I’ll try to get better at that.

Happy Sewing!

Well, that was my idea for approaching a fair number of pleats. Fourteen to be exact. That’s less than the 28 pleats which the other view featured. Knowing that I would never get the pleats pressed into their original shape after the first wearing, I felt I had to stitch the pleats in place (that means four seams per pleat or 56 to be exact, but who’s counting). Which is why the idea of zen sewing occurred to me. Just start stitching and be in the moment. Each pleat is just another pleat, breathe.

I got through the stitching and made friends with my 1/4″ foot which had the added advantage of being a straight stitch foot. That meant that when I did my few back stitches at the end, the fabric didn’t jam down in to the feed dogs. Previously, I thought I just had to live with that irritation. (I just have to remember not to try zigzagging with that foot.)

One other new technique I tried was using the knee lifter that came with my machine. (Is that what going on vacation does to you-make you want to try new things-disturb your status quo?) You will only understand the humor here if you know that I have an old Singer with a knee lever that pushes against the foot feet clamped inside the machine cabinet. This means that on the Singer, when I press my leg against the lever, the machine stitches, but when I do the same motion on my Babylock, the presser foot raises. Needless to say, late into the night as I stitched my 56 pleat seams there were times when my machine was so confused-oh, that’s right, only a person can be confused-the machine was just doing as it was told. Many times I waited for the feed dogs to move fabric but the only thing that happened was that the presser foot lifted. I tried different techniques-deliberately taking my foot off the presser foot, actually trying to think while I sewed (what a concept), but ultimately I ended up using my left foot to make the machine go and my right leg to lift the presser foot. I’m confused, my legs are confused but I feel like I’ve learned a lot AND I love how the skirt turned out.

I went outside and sat in the sun, clipping (black!!!) threads off my new garment. A perfectly zen ending.