Keynote speaker with a blog that has been recognized by everybody in the blogging world. Check her out.

Lunch menu came from her recipes and was yummy and beautifully presented.

I’m waiting for the first panel to start and have to say the uniform for the creative female is a great skirt and thin cardigan with a layer in between, of course. Fun jewelry is everywhere. Already exchanged business cards with Georgia, Chicago and a few locals. Sitting next to a young woman who has eight adopted/foster kids in a house with her mother AND she won a contest so her studio will be featured in Where Women Create. Makes me feel like withering.

Fit is always part of garment sewing and with all of the collective knowledge out there, maybe we can find an answer to this question. There are qualifications, though.

The tee must be:

fitted
feminine
long sleeve
an assortment of necklines is desirable but not mandatory
something like the Gap’s Favorite T’s
wearable under jackets, etc. in winter

I’ll start with my two cents-I love Marcy Tilton’s tees because of the cut of the bust and underarm. You may have to skinny up the waist and hips (of course, the extra room in that area is what I love). Arms are also a close fit. She has funky neck bands but those are simple to modify.

The other patterns are the Stretch and Sew tees. They seem body skimming on me and are shaped through the waist.

Now it’s your turn. Let’s see how much wisdom we can get into one website!

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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