Spring is finally here, slowly but surely. It’s fun to sew with brighter colors. For those of you who attended, we hope you were inspired. We discovered how quickly patterns can be removed from the catalogs so if anyone owns either Burda 8222 or Simplicity 2885, please let us know as there are a few who would like to trace them and they’re not readily available. It was a great dress, Laurel!

The Club sheets are found in the top bar of the website.

Happy Sewing!

Thanks for all the input we received-especially from those of you we haven’t yet met. After deliberating and going back and forth with Treadle and dates we’ve decided to try Saturday meetings at Treadle beginning in October. Good weather Saturdays seemed like formidable competition even for those of us who are sewing addicts. Maybe it’s just this year with the late spring. We hope that some of you who haven’t come to Club will find a summer evening to try us out.

So today (Thursday) will be the last May meeting. We’ll be at Hancock/Bernina/Southtown at 10:30 am and 6:30 pm. Remember, the first time is free!

Summer Schedule:

Thursday, June 9, Hancock/Bernina/Southtown, 10:30 and 6:30
Monday, June 13, Make It Sew, Chanhassen, 1:30 and 6:30 pm
Tuesday, June 14, Treadle Yard Goods, St. Paul, 10:30 and 6:30

Here’s a longer explanation of what we’re thinking of changing:
We know the difference in the energy in a room when there are more people. We’d like to see 10 people at each meeting. Our original thought was that a Saturday meeting was needed to accommodate those who couldn’t make it during the day or evening. At the April Saturday meeting we asked the attendees if they could come another time and they all said yes. Since we haven’t stumbled on the magic formula for attracting more new people to Club we thought it might help to shift a few people to other meetings, thereby increasing the average attendance.

In response to today’s email, the suggestion has been made to start a Saturday meeting at Treadle. A Saturday meeting may attract new Treadle customers. It takes away the travel and parking difficulties that some people are concerned about. The Tuesday morning group is happy meeting when it does and doesn’t want to split but the evening attendance is light and some of them may prefer Saturday to attending after a long day of work.

Attendance at Make It Sew is building slowly so a Saturday addition there is not in the works at this time.

What do you think? We’d really like to know because you are the reason we do what we do. Otherwise we’d just fade away in our sewing rooms under a cover of serger dust 🙂

A few options to get you thinking (same as what was on Facebook)

If you attended a Saturday morning Treadle Fashion Sewing Club would you:
a. Be a new attendee because nothing scheduled has worked for you before
b. Come on Saturday instead of Treadle’s Tuesday evening
c. Come on Saturday instead of your usual meeting at Hancock or Make It Sew

Wonderful month of sewing, pretty good weather. It was good to see so many people at the different meetings. That being said, the Saturday morning Club at Hancock is going to be discontinued at least for the summer. It seems that most people that come on Saturday could also come to an evening or morning weekday meeting. Unless we hear from some of you, we’ll try it for summer and reassess for fall.

Here are the garments. You can see the Club sheets if you go to the top of the webpage and click on Club Sheets.

Thanks to all who came to Club. Hopefully sandals will be the logical choice for May Club meetings 🙂

You Pick a Project classes are Monday, Apr. 18, 2-4 pm, at Hancock, Bloomington

and Tuesday, Apr. 19 and 26, 1:30 or 6:30 at Make It Sew, Chanhassen.

You can sign up online for the Hancock class if you click on Classes above. Call Make It Sew-952-767-0701 to register for that class.

At our last “Serging Beyond Four Thread” class there were a fair amount of questions about threads so here is an attempt to answer some questions and give you a (somewhat) permanent reference.

In general, you want to stay away from cheap threads. Look at a single strand of thread and see how much lint is attached. Compare it with regular sewing thread. It will be hairier than regular thread but you want to minimize lint as it clogs up your machine.

The major brands easily available are pictured here.

Maxi-Lock is pictured in the Babylock brochures but we were told not to use it when working at Sew Amazing. I’ve been using it all along and have had no problems. Their variegated thread can give you some fun options if more decorative threads don’t work in your serger.

JoAnn’s stopped carrying Maxi-Lock about a year ago and started carrying Toldi-Lock which is a Gutermann product. At the top of the display is Bulky Nylon-their version of Wooly Nylon. There is a good assortment of colors-they seemed a bit more up to date than the Maxi-Lock available at Hancock.

JoAnn’s also carries a premium serger thread by Gutermann. The color availability is limited-at least at the Yorktown store. I buy this when I have a good coupon.
Remember, you can always use regular sewing machine thread in your left-most needle or your coverstitch needles to get a perfect match for the color of your fabric. Contrasting thread is also an alternative that can look nice on the inside of your garment as overcast edges.
Thread prices range from $2.99 on sale to $7.49 for the premium, but it lasts a long time.

We didn’t hear from many of you so we’ve cancelled Dress Your Best for spring. Maybe we’ll try in the fall. The style magazines are full of advice and it’s fun thinking of ways to incorporate the trends in ways appropriate to your own personal style. Have fun and hope to see some of your renditions at April Club!

Thanks to everyone who attended this month. We missed bad weather and now the sun is shining and the grass is showing so I think we’re past the bad weather issues (I hope, I hope). Here are pictures, the Club sheets are available at the top of the website if you have questions.

Show and Tell was great-keep up the good work. Looking forward to spring creations.

Show and Tell-these patterns all came highly recommended!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Sew green today.