April Fashion Sewing Club

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.

Linen Pleated Skirt and Half Cowl Shirt

Flatlocking and pleats on linen skirt

Soft pleating at shoulder of cowl

Banded Placket Blouse

T-shirt Topper

Laurel's Tribeca Shirt and Simplicity Skirt

Laurel's Sophia Trench

Laurel's Silhouette #700-Version 2

Kristin's Sophia Trench, Fan Shell and Almost Straight Skirt

Fan Shell Detail

Kristin's Boyfriend Cardigan

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

Just in case you need help choosing a You Pick Project…

KwikSew 3787-Aprons from adult to doll

Sophia Trench-Serendipity Studio

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.

Serger Threads

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 available at Hancock Fabrics

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.
Toldi-Lock available at JoAnn's

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.
Gutermann Premium Serger Thread at JoAnn's

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.

New Sewists!

We had a great group of new sewists at Make It Sew last night-well, there were varying degrees of experience, from absolutely none to one who made a very nice cover for her eBook reader-without a pattern!
Anyway, they all started with a pillowcase, complete with hot dog roll and french seams. One student made two so she could welcome her husband home with a beautifully made bed, one made a boy themed case, another a girl themed and then there was a great bold print paired with batik.
Would it surprise you if I said they all chose a different skirt pattern for next week’s class?! SEW ON!!

And just in case you haven’t seen the new “skins” at Make It Sew-here’s a picture. I’ll be showing the Sophia Trench with one of them for the lining at Fashion Sewing Club in April.

Dress Your Best-Maybe this Fall

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!

March Fashion Sewing 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.

Kristin's Puff Sleeve Blouse

Kristin's Jacket with Bow

Kristin's Corset Vest

Kristin's Skirt

Laurel's Pink Tee

Laurel's Cowl Neck Knit Dress

Debbie's Denim Jacket

Debbie's Teal Shell
Neck Band Detail

Debbie's Drape Front Cardigan

Show and Tell-these patterns all came highly recommended!

McCall's 6074

McCall's 5431-made several times

College daughter loved this one shoulder top-McCalls 6118

Tank Dress KwikSew 3611

Embellished Onesies! Great use for remnants and easy to wear.

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

One Coat Finished; One Daughter in Wales

I didn’t realize how much work those winter coats were going to be last month. My daughter’s study abroad deadline forced me to finish the coat from Sew Serendipity and I thought I might share the finishing touches.
Buttons went on after the cuffs and hems and topstitching. I love the buttons and experimented with beads in the X of the thread but the beads were too big.
I wanted to sew small buttons to the back side to make the orange thread neater. Anybody know what that small button is called? I didn’t. It’s a backer button. I was worried that the smaller holes wouldn’t match up with the holes of the bigger buttons but it went very smoothly. I also wanted to make a bit of a shank to allow for the thick fabric. I’ve done that before-put a crochet hook between the fabric and button and sew, then take out the hook and wrap thread…but it never seems to be enough to make a shank. But then I consulted with Debbie and she straightened me out-put the crochet hook (or toothpick, etc.) on TOP of the button and sew it on. Oohhhhh! And just in case, I looked it up in Vogue and it was the same as Debbie’s advice. Wonder where my idea came from….

And then there was this pucker at the top corner of each center. At least it was symmetrical. With a buttonhole right next to it there wasn’t much I could do so I pressed it as well as I could and left it there! Can you tell I was getting to the end of my patience for this project?

But the fact that the jacket made the final suitcase cut for Wales was worth it all. I hope she gets lots of wear out of it. And I am in search of a similar pattern as I won’t be using that one again.

Infinity Scarf Directions

We’ve had so many requests for the infinity scarf directions so I spent some time looking for a link and here it is:
Infinity Scarf. This is the original article that we made ours from in the Sew Stylish magazine. Awfully nice of them to put it on the web. Have fun whipping up a few.

The Last of Christmas Sewing

I think this may be a banner year for me-no unmade Christmas gifts given! OK, so I still didn’t get last year’s pajamas made for my husband, but I did alter three pair of pants for him-in the middle of Christmas sewing. We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.

I really did intend to make good on the post-Club Christmas sewing contest but then I realized that most people on Facebook are “friends” with their children and would most likely have done Christmas sewing for them and not want to reveal the gift before the opening! So any good ideas for giving away those Gingher scissors? And here’s Zach in his smoking jacket-

One of our most faithful beginning sewists at Hancock is really taking off. Here is her Christmas skirt. It was a challenge but the finished project looks great. She also made a Santa outfit for her dog. It’s fun to watch people branch out and try new skills.

Our Hancock kids’ class had several girls like that. They just wanted to sew the ideas in their heads and we were there to help make them happen. We did finish the fur vest projects, too. The girls were surprised at how quickly they went together and we were surprised at how little fur mess there was.

Kids’ Break Classes

Know any kids that want to do some sewing during break? We have one more day of classes-Wednesday, Dec. 29, at 10 am or 2 pm.
Morning class project will be a sewing notions pouch (pic below) and afternoon class will make a faux fur vest (pic in class listing).
Click on Classes in top bar, then Classes at Hancock/Bernina to register.