Fashion Sewing Club at Expo!!

OK, I’m really excited about it and hope many others will be. Two years ago we had a booth at the Expo but this year we get to do our Club presentations-twice-Thursday at 9:30 am (I think I’m going to stay overnight) and Saturday at 10:15. There will be a runway to walk so everyone that brings show and tell should wear it so you can walk the runway too. Come on, you only go around once, right? There will be no Fashion Sewing Club meetings in November at our other locations.

We’ll also have a booth right next to Treadle Yard Goods. We’ll have demos of our favorite techniques/notions/patterns, etc. Some of our garments will be shown by models at the noon runway shows.

Looks like the Expo website is all up and running. There are quite a few garment sewing classes-lots of fit and some serger classes to get you going. Click here to go there.
Club will be free for November because you’ll be paying to get into the Expo and all. Subscription for Sept.-Dec. is on the website for $25. This year the Expo moves out of downtown to the Northland Inn in Brooklyn Park.

Classes will be posted this weekend and maybe even a new look to the website as I’ll have some undivided attention from my web consultant.

Hope to see what you’re sewing next week-

Monday, Sept. 12-Make It Sew, Chanhassen at 1:30 and 6:30 pm
Tuesday, Sept. 13-Treadle Yard Goods, St. Paul at 10:30 and 6:30 pm
Thursday, Sept. 15-Bernina/Hancock/Southtown at 10:30 and 6:30 pm

All Knits Do Not Roll Equally

Several tees in the new Talbots catalog caught my eye:

It looked like the rolled knit embellishment I used on my “Strip Tees” last month at Fashion Sewing Club.

Which made me wonder if I was limited to cotton/lycra knits for this method or if some of the rayon and poly knits were candidates. So I sewed a few strips together, got them wet and threw them into the dryer.

Here are the results:

Unfortunately these are remnants from my stash so I can’t say exactly what the content is but, for me, the bottom line is: It’s worth the time to make a mock up and be sure I’ll get the roll I want.

Now to the sewing table to copy the tees!

August Club pictures and more

The pictures and Club sheets for August are on the website under the “Club Sheets and Garment Photos” heading. If you weren’t there, we missed you and if you were, this should help you remember what you saw. As always it was good to see everyone and the weather was fine. Such beautiful summer days we are having.

On a more creepy note-some of you may have gotten an email or Facebook message from me about being mugged in London. The good news is it’s not true and I have my accounts back again (I think anyway, this makes you feel like you should always be looking over your shoulder or checking your accounts). If you sent any email to me between Monday, 8/15 and Wed. 8/17, I didn’t get it but someone else might have enjoyed it. Please resend anything so I can get back up to date. And thank you to those of you that alerted me to the problem as soon as you saw it.

Here are show and tell pictures from the Hancock meeting. Lots of fun and inspiration!

Designer added some very Vogue details to the common peasant blouse

Traveling iron cover doubles as an ironing surface
Great diaper and cover pattern if that's where you are in life-Hancock has the specialty fabrics

July Addendum

Just a few items of interest to pass on from Club meetings:
This from Cheri-
Was just reading an article on Stitchers Guild about a lady that had pre-washed some fabric (purple) with jeans and khakis. You guessed it, purple spots all over the khakis. A couple of different products were recommended: “Krud Cutter” and “Synthropol”. Have never heard of the Krud Cutter, but Synthropol is an excess color remover used in washing new quilts and available at independent quilt shops. Thought it was interesting since Laura brought up her oops with her iron.
And Laura’s fix for “Ironing Oops (scorch marks)”-
It was hydrogen peroxide! I just dampened the spare piece of cloth with the hydrogen peroxide and laid it on top of the scorch mark and ironed the spot with a warm iron — not cotton or linen setting. Gosh it didn’t take long either but the directions said you could do it more than once if the spot didn’t come out . Now, I was doing this on white linen…..
Check out this great link for all kinds of different scorch/peroxide answers.
The website for Cheri’s Circle Skirt-
circle skirt directions

Happy Sewing!!

Fashion Sewing Club Photos Up…

…with a difference.

Last month, I went looking for directions on our website for a garment made previously. I realized that without the pictures attached to the words it was cumbersome to find what I wanted. So this month I won’t put ALL the pictures here (just a teaser) and I’ve put the garment pictures just above the instructions in the Club sheets.

If you want to see all the photos, click on “Club Sheets & Garment Photos” and then “July 2011” and you’ll find everything, hopefully conveniently located right next to each other. It should also be easy to scroll down to find the garment you are looking for, if that’s the case.

Do you like the new format or have suggestions to improve it?



You can find this fabric in the previous post “Treasure Hunting at Hancock”.

Stash Therapy

To stash or not, that is the question, and here is how one of the newer and more productive “Material Girls” (if you read this blog, you are a material girl) dealt with it recently:

Hi Ladies,

I can only tell you this – no one else would appreciate it.
So, I think something finally clicked and I now know how to manage my stash a bit better. I’ve been feeling chained to my sewing room with all of this fabric I’ve accumulated – a stash stresses me out!

Today I didn’t want to sew so I decided to organize my sewing room. I threw out all my scraps and leftovers- whew – I felt so freed!
Then I noticed I have some real color stories going among my stash fabrics. So I started pulling color families and stories together.
I then arranged the color stories into seasons. (And I realized I really love all the fabrics I have in my stash.)
Then I went through my patterns and created a line for each season (did I mention I’ve also been watching Project Runway on Hulu? And I think the Christine Johnson article helped too)
I have a page for each season with my notes for what each fabric could be used to create.
Each season has 3-4 fabrics. Finally I put each season away with my notes and potential patterns for the outfits.

I feel like I actually accomplished something and my stash will hopefully no longer create stress in my life. I hope to really enjoy some benefits from this work.

1. Working on 3-4 outfits a season won’t make me feel as rushed. I’ll hopefully have the time to enjoy the fabrics I’m working on and not feel stressed about the other ones in the closet.
2. I’ll speed up my work- by working in the same color families – not having to re- thread with each new project, etc.
3. My line isn’t necessarily a complete wardrobe concept – too much pressure- it might just be a jacket and two tops.
But I think I’ll enjoy the finished product more because it will be seasonally appropriate and the jacket will work with the tops
if I choose to wear them together or as separate items (usually I’ve just been creating one off items).

I forgot to add that this will also help me shop more productively. After going through and grouping the fabric – I can now see where I have holes. So, as I shop I can buy fabric that has a home – and will fill a need, instead of just buying random fabric-which I may or may not ever use.

So, was this idea inspiration – or have I finally just been listening to what you guys have been trying to preach?

Best, Carrie

Oh, if we were all this organized! How do you deal with your stash and the little voices in your head (am I the only one that hears them?) Carrie, let us know how this works for you- maybe you should be the main speaker for Dress Your Best!

Please add your stash management strategies to the post-or are you one of those disciplinarians who has none…..

Treasure Hunting at Hancock

Sorry if I made you go from Facebook to website but my small knowledge of etiquette says that Facebook is for short and sweet.

If you didn’t come from Facebook, here are the pictures of the treasures Debbie and I found at Hancock yesterday:


Another color palette

Flower fabric and silk linen(?)

So as we were wandering around the store between classes we saw the flowers on netting-in two colorways. Never seen anything like it before and at Hancock! I love treasure hunting and am usually rewarded at almost all fabric stores-some just have a higher occurrence of treasures and, needless to say, this is not good for my stash reduction program.

Anyway, I moved the fabric fold to check on the price of this unique fabric and it was $39.99 per yard! A rare price tag at Hancock.

And then, we realized that the very fabric used to make the flowers was there too. It’s the last picture. Another customer was in the next aisle while all of this was going on. I had to show her the fabric and explain our glee but I’m not sure she was convinced that I was not a crazy person.

I am the proud owner of this fabric, with the aid of a 40% coupon and am very excited to explore the possibilities of both the flowers on netting and the flat fabric used to make the flowers.

Just one more treasure-we were looking in the linens/seersucker and found a short bolt of something that felt like silk (the plum/wine in the last picture). The label said linen and as linen was 50% off and it was a color of mine, I bought the rest of it. After some online research I think it may be a silk linen, only 42″ wide-the label said 54″-and I got 5 yds. for $5 a yard. It’s in the washing machine as I write and I will still do a burn test just to see if I can firm up the identification (silk should smell like burning hair, linen like burning leaves).

All in all, a happy hunt. Now to make something equally wonderful to wear!

Have you found any treasures lately?

June Fashion Sewing Club

Another month of sewing and learning more about techniques and fit and which patterns work for us, individually, and which ones don’t. It’s always fun to add a new pattern or two to my “Favorite Patterns” box-a pattern I can just whip up now because I’ve made the changes I need to and the pattern fits great. I highly recommend Peggy Sagers’ fit webcasts to help you with the fitting process. Here’s the link if you are having trouble finding them.

At Treadle we saw an American Girl Doll Bed with all the trimmings. This was designed by Linda Swensen from Wilmar, MN.

Here are the garment pictures-anyone want to do some amateur photography?? Hope you enjoy them if you didn’t make it to Club. The Club sheets are on the website under “Club Sheets” in the bar at the top of the site.

Happy Sewing until July-

Debbie’s Garments:

CL Designer Tee

Flatlock Panel Skirt

KwikSew 3778

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Laurel’s Garments:
Casual Sweatshirt Jacket

White tee shirt/tunic

Sheer Ruffle Blouse

Plaid Cotton Blouse

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Kristin’s Garments:
Flounce Vest, Circles Tee, Travel (Yoga) Pants

Crossover Tee

Pamela's Patterns-Twinset

Pamela's Patterns-Cool Cardigan

Linen Shirtdress

White Eyelet Dress

Exposed Zipper

Confluence Weekend

Somebody knew what they were doing when they named the event “Confluence”! So many wonderful fiber arts things to do this weekend (this does not profess to be an exhaustive list-just what I’m aware of and had time to look up-feel free to add more):

First off-If you need an SR Harris fix, some of us are headed up there on Friday-arriving about 9:30 and then we’ll have lunch someplace. Call if you’d like to carpool-952-201-3863.

Katherine Tilton is in town for Confluence-this is from her email, “I’ll be showing my latest work – some great new pieces! – at the Trunk Show this Friday night, 6-10PM. See hotel location info below. There will also be 2 movies, the Vendor Fair and a DIY festival happening at the same time so it should be fun.

I am in charge of the Vendor Fair which is free and open to the public Thursday evening, 6-8PM, Friday, 8:30AM-2PM & 6-10PM (Trunk Show time too!), Saturday, 8:30AM-5PM & Sunday, 8:30AM-1030AM. There are amazingly beautiful textiles from Japan, Mexico, Uzbekistan, Southeast Asia, Kyrgyzstan, India and the US available plus many tools, yarns and accoutrements for textile makers and lovers.

All this is happening at the:
Radisson University Hotel
615 Washington Avenue
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55414
Phone: 612.379.8888

This link has information about getting to the hotel during the construction that’s happening on campus: http://www.surfacedesign.org/subpage/travel-lodging ”

Click here for more Confluence info.

And June Colburn will be having a Trunk Show at Treadle on Friday evening-spaces available. She’s also offering two classes on Saturday at Treadle but only 2-3 spots left. Call Treadle if interested-651-698-9690.

And Fashion Sewing Club is this Thursday at Hancock, Monday at Make It Sew and Tuesday at Treadle!

Hope to see you soon.

The London Eye

Having a great time in the UK. Not much use for sandals or shorts here. The standard uniform for my daughter’s age group is a short dress or shorts/top and black tights and boots and don’t forget a scarf.
My age group? I started looking and saw everything from jeans to dresses and travel clothes.
We’ve seen high fashion in Portobello Road and punk and goth in Camden Market.
The food is wonderful. People have been friendly. Got into London just after a big thunderstorm otherwise drizzly at times and partly cloudy at others.
V&A still on the list of things to do. Haven’t found Liberty of London yet either.
Having a wonderful trip.

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