Recap of the New England Retreat

Winding down after a wonderful week of non-stop sewing with a lovely group of women. Here’s a glimpse of the varied projects.

First up is a Ziggi moto jacket from Style Arc patterns. The toile was tweaked until we were happy with the fit. Front neckline was raised and we opted for thin shoulder pads to eliminate drag lines in the back.

Style Arc patterns have minimal instructions. Marvine had chosen a luxurious piece of navy wool for this upscale jacket, and wanted to incorporate traditional tailoring techniques. She chose a lightweight Italian hymo canvas to support the front panels, collar and shoulders. Look at the beautiful pad stitching; too bad it gets covered up. Custom zippers from Botani Trim in NYC.

Robin chose this wonderful boucle for a French jacket. Like most boucle fabrics, this one frayed like crazy. Serging the cut edges kept things under control. I set up the serger for a four thread overlock using a very fine thread. Unlike regular sewing thread, the thin thread adds no bulk to the fabric. The studio was equipped with a professional boiler iron for superior pressing results. The combination of a supple fabric plus plenty of steam allowed us to reshape the side jacket panels, eliminating disruption of the fabric pattern along the princess lines.

Contrast the two front side panels. One is before shaping, the underneath panel shows what happens when you transfer the large dart to the armseye and side bust area.

I provided an assortment of professional style pressing tools. Everyone loved the large press buck. It’s a great tool for pressing long, gently curved seams such as hip curves, side seams and sleeve seams. Also works well for pinning the lining of French jacket seams as the gentle curve adds just enough ease to the lining. I have a post from December 17, 2020 with instructions for making your own. https://cloningcouture.com/category/tailoring/

Sandra Kay had several goals she wanted to accomplish. One was refining the fit of her moulage, making a custom dressform cover which she will use after padding her form at home plus developing a basic sloper to use for personal patterns.

We also tweaked the fit of her French jacket and set the sleeves in. She’ll be able to complete it at home. Rather than a goal of completing projects, I think class time is better spent on working out the complicated details which are hard to do by yourself.

Anne Kendall of Apple Annie Fabrics also joined us. Anne’s goal was to tweak the fit on several garments and perfect some toiles. Anne is a very accomplished sewist and wanted to utilize the time fitting rather than sewing. I didn’t get any photos of Anne’s fittings but she generously kept her shop open for us one evening.

How could we not shop!! One never has enough fabric and we left with large packages. I was particularly impressed with her selection of heavenly soft cottons.

This class was a small group which allowed me to give more individualized attention to each person. Shuffling between widely varied projects also takes a bit more time than when the entire class works on a single style. Additional workshop dates for 2023 will be published as soon as I work out my schedule. Hope you can join us.