Just had another wonderful breakfast full of new things to try:
Lychee fruit
Hydroentangled eggs (custardy scrambled eggs)
All Kinds of Pickles
Black rice cakes
Yogurt with a straw to drink it
Yellow Knife steamed buns
Sushi
-and that’s only a partial list!
Alive and very well in China. I have eaten eighteen kinds of dumplings in one meal, climbed the Great Wall and seen more umbrellas (parasols, maybe) in the last five days than in my entire life. And the trip isn’t quite half over.
Wonderful people (my fourteen traveling companions are all wonderful) and beautiful placess to see. But enough words-here are some pictures.
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.
For those of us that love to sew AND garden, we’ve been given a bit of a reprieve. This gloomy, cold weather makes it easy to stay inside and get creative. It seems I have lots of ideas and get things done but then when I go to my closet-there’s nothing to wear!
Sewing for Paris gave me great go-to outfits for winter but now with this new season it seems I’m starting from scratch. I sew something and finish it and then question whether the garment fits my lifestyle right now. Let’s not even talk about whether I have the shoes, undergarments, etc! How do people look put together all the time?
To that end, and because I am working on my travel wardrobe for China, we’ll be offering up a challenge for the summer months. Come to Fashion Sewing Club next week and find out the rules and regulations (or you can make up your own rules). And come with suggestions for how you put your sewn garments together so that you have things to wear.
For those of you with iPhones, Sara posted a comment about Pattern Pal. I uploaded (or did I download:) it and have been giving it a try. It costs $3.99 which is a bit on the more expensive side but I compare that with the cost of a pattern and you know where that gets me. The app allows you to take a picture of your pattern and gives you lists of pattern companies, notions, a place to enter yardage, etc. You have to add words (like 18″ zipper, shoulder pads) but then it will appear as an option next time so over time you accumulate a good list of options. The patterns can be sorted by number, company, type and a few others so that’s easy. You still can’t zoom the picture which would be good for seeing the back of the pattern envelope. You can enter two photos so you could also include the fabric you have used. I had a few problems with the app closing as I was entering data which was annoying. Otherwise it seems to be a good option. I think I’d still like it as part of Fabric Stash so it would all be in one place. If you try the app, be sure to go to the site and post your review of it. That way maybe they’ll give us what we want in updates.
We still have room in the Saturday, May 8, Beach Cover Up/Robe Class if you are interested.
That’s all for now, I’ve got to get back up to my machines! Happy Sewing and Happy Mother’s Day if it applies!
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
Seven Material Girls drove all the way to Chanhassen on March 12 to listen to Christopher Straub, a Shakopee resident, of Project Runway-Season 6 fame. He entertained about 30 of us with an informal question and answer format and had a great drawing for two of his handbag designs. None of the Material Girls won 😦
Christopher is now designing bags of all kinds and will also have a new line of garments to show at MN Fashion Week.
The Sampler will be hosting Valori Wells, a fabric designer for Free Spirit, on May 19th from 5-7 pm. Cost is $30 and they’re promising more great giveaways.
As I was listening to my fellow Material Girls at the March Fashion Sewing Club I wondered if we were becoming fabric snobs. Most of the fabric we purchase is from Treadle Yard Goods-but not everyone shops there or even knows of the store. Christopher Straub of from Project Runway fame hadn’t even heard of it, for goodness’ sake!
Anyway, in defense of our exclusivity, or just plain love of so many Treadle fabrics, it takes time to shop and since we mostly find ourselves at Treadle, that just happens to be where we buy our fabric. When we were teaching classes and holding Club at Hancock we also found fabric there.
However, an email from a frustrated Trench Coat Class student was the final nudge I needed to make a special trip to Hancock Fabrics at Southtown. That and the niggling feeling of fabric snobbery and hearing that the store had undergone some rearranging.
So here are my happy finds for trench coat fabric at Hancock. I’m not including prices because I didn’t write them down or even look in some cases. Most of the fabrics are in the upholstery section but the last picture of the solid color fabric is in amongst the regular fabric and is labeled as jacket or outerwear. The colors-a gold/brown, silver/gray and blue/black are especially distinct and appealing (to my eye, anyway). Let me know if you want more specific directions to the location of it.
There’s still room in the Trench class-see the class listings at the top of the site.
This Thursday, March 25, is our Love Your Serger Class day. The project will be Total Serger Tee Techniques and Tips. A mouthful and two hours full of how to put a tee together with your serger. We’ll bring a pre-cut American Girl Doll size t-shirt for you to work on or you can cut out a tee of your own and bring it to class to sew together. This means an opportunity to use your coverstitch if you’ve never done that before (you know who you are) or if you don’t have coverstitch, we’ll use the rolled hem lettuce edge to finish edges.
The class is held at Associated Sewing in Bloomington, March 25, from 2-4 or 6:30-8:30 and the cost is $15. Click on the class name to register and pay through PayPal or send an email to kristin@materialgirlsewing.com
Here’s a picture from the February class where we made a ruffled pillowcase.
Material Girl Sewing 