Preview of Spring Classes

Published: Fri, 11/22/19

Basic

November 22, 2019

Some oldies but goldies and 2 new classes. The oldies but goldies are the ponte pants class and the knit Polo shirt pattern. But the two new classes are the Dress (and everyone should have one for this spring) and the hoodie. Both of these styles are new - well, I know hoodie's not new, but the styles I'm presenting are. They are from a new pattern-maker and they have some delightful new trends. Don't worry - I'll announce the classes once the full schedule is set up.

Preview of the New Classes - the Dress

If you've been reading the blog (here and here), you've been seeing that dresses are really in.

This is a mash-up of the latest dresses on the most recent home page of Vogue.com. Everyone is wearing dresses and the designers can't show enough of them. So dresses are the key word for spring.

These are the steps I went through to work on the Christine Haynes Emory Dress. (NOTE: I'm not sure I'm even going to use this pattern, but wanted to test it out.) This is a new company, a new pattern, and a whole new way of gauging what size to pick out. She takes the bust, upper bust and waist measurement, however I noticed when I did that my shoulders were huge. When I use my traditional shoulder measurement, the bodice was very tiny.

Onto the 3rd tracing for a size. I traced out what I measured on the body as correct bust and correct waist, and that's the size I did. That one turned out almost right, but a little snug - that means a little size up and I had the right size with some tweaks.

Here's that process, and understand I had to trace off 4 separate tries before I finally got the right size, and even that had to be tweaked out a little bit.

Since you all are my most fervent followers, I wanted you all to see this first So please don't share because this will be included in the class, so I don't want this circulated out there. The students in the class will need this too, and without the explanation here, the video will miss something. But I'm asking a big favor!

Here's Why I'm Asking You Not To Share

I despise videos or any material passed off to students without it being complete. Part of my problem with a lot of videos on YouTube is that they aren't complete and present only part of the lesson, leaving the sewists wondering what happened, why is this always wrong, and wondering if the sewists is wrong and how could it be this bad always? I know this feeling so well, cause this is the frustration, depression and sorrow I had before I learned to sew so well. Without the additional information here, which they wouldn't have, then these videos don't mean much. That reason alone is enough to prevent you from sharing, even well-meaning sharing. But additionally, it's sharing something that I've worked very hard on and spent about a week making. When you share someone else's work, it's like stealing that time and their labor from them.

So with that said, here we go!

I'm using my mannequin here because it's so much easier for me to show how to fit on my mannequin, but this also shows you the value of a great mannequin that is your size. It is not a replacement for your body, but it's a huge head start. As a matter of fact, one of the things you will notice in the video is that I create a lot of ease and do NOT fit close to the mannequin.

As a final fitting I do put the tissue on me, to check it out. After that, I'm in the process of making a muslin of this pattern, and to date, have enough of the muslin together that I can see how this is going to fit.

What I'm trying to get across here, and I'm not sure I did, is
    -it took 4 tissue tracings of the pattern....
    -it took 4 fittings on the mannequin (and a few more on me)
    -it took 4 time of working with this pattern....
before I got a good fit. Most of my patterns I use today are TNT (Yeah, that's another subject coming up), and so I am so used to simply grabbing a top, bottom, or whatever and cutting it out and sewing it up cause I know exactly how it's going to fit.

This time was different, and that's what I wanted to get across.

OK - so have fun with this, and take courage that even we pros have to work through some new things to get to a great look. So don't think that because you have to have 2 or 3 fittings that something's wrong. It's usually the exact opposite. You are fine-tuning and creating a great look that you will use over and over.

And BTW, I plan on making this dress again and again.

I was going to make this video the end of this, but something really important happened last night and felt it was important to include this when talking about the dress.

I had a client come by while I was working with the dress, and the first thing she said was, "You're so dressed up!" Usually, I'm wearing leggings, black boots or flats, turtleneck and some top, but today I had on the unfinished dress.

Now, that seems relatively unremarkable doesn't it. But I will tell you, the minute you put on the dress for a fitting, you're going to feel like you're wearing a formal gown and getting ready to go to a formal ball. Well, OK, maybe I exaggerated, just a little. But the feeling is remarkable.

I want to warn you about this, because we are all so used to being totally casual that the minute we put on something slightly dressy (like a dress), we feel positively formal! For years when I was in school I would have to fly back and forth from school to home for holidays and summer vacations. Ladies (young ladies even in school) were educated on how to look appropriate for flying. We usually wore a suit or a dress with a jacket, heels, we had a purse and if it was raining or winter, we had a coat. This whole "look" was standard and very common place. Anyone who wore jeans or khakis was either a mechanical worker or someone who had come through a warp/time hole and was certainly not of this world!

The point I'm trying to make is that fashion is not only moving toward a more feminine look, and while they are moving toward that look, a dress is an instrumental part of that. But there's more going on here than a more feminine profile. The other is that there is the air of a dressier look. There's the fashion by-product of the more feminine look contains a more formal look.

Now, I'm not talking about getting out your matching back and shoes and that you must be all color coordinated. Fashion is not that dictatorial. What I am saying is that a dress automatically makes you feel dressier. It makes you feel more lady-like. That's the very nature of the dress.

But you need some warning, because for the next couple of years, we're going to almost be like yo-yos. We're going from boot-cut jeans, with boots and a tough leather jacket, to a dress with a bow type belt and heels. Talk about a schizoid character. Well, that's what's going to happen for a while.

I'm simply preparing you for what's coming.

In the meantime, here's a good video of the fitting of the initial muslin of the dress. My judgement is that this is a great pattern, albeit a little funky about fitting sizes and picking the right size. Click here for that video and by all means, enjoy wearing a dress. It is definitely a new look.

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