Seven Day Sievers Over Achievers…

This is the part of a lengthy class I love best.  There were five die-hards that hung in there for seven days, three of them have taken my class so many times we lost count.  Seven, eight times?  I love these women, we have worked with each other for a long time and I know them well, and their bodies.  They have terrific “assets” which can make fitting quite difficult, almost impossible to do by yourself. I’m not sure if they continue to take the class because we do get things to fit, or because they do get the opportunity to stretch themselves, or maybe because we have such a great time together.  Maybe it is a combination of all three?

First there is Cindy.  Cindy took her first class with me back at the Midwest Conference in Sheboygan in 2005.  She has a collection of jackets from my classes that date almost that far back, and she wears them all, and brings them with her each time she comes.  Note to self, get a photo of all Cindy’s jackets!

Cindy worked hard on her pattern alterations.  She used a Vogue pattern as a starting point, but we changed it a lot along the way!

She cut out her handwoven fabric, it is a combination plain weave and basket weave on eight shafts from a Robin And Russ sample page. It is downloadable from somewhere. Post in the comments if someone figures it out.

She spent a good half a day attaching her gorgeous handwoven fabric to a fusible underlining.

She practiced making bound buttonholes for her self covered button.

We tweaked the fit continually, and she is really happy with the results.

Ginnie and I have kept in touch outside of Sievers, she sews all the time, and we share projects and adventures, it was Ginnie and a friend of hers that came to my studio a year or so ago and helped me sort through my stash after a buying trip to NYC.  Ginnie has a stash that makes mine look paltry, many of her fabrics now bordering on Vintage.  She contacted me ahead of time to see what I thought of her using a twenty year old cashmere she had on her shelf.  She picked a vintage Vogue pattern to work with.  There were seventy nine steps in the construction of this garment.  I added additional steps because I wanted her to underline the cashmere with silk organza.

She posted regular progress reports on Facebook.  There was definitely a fan club cheering her on, both in the studio and on her Facebook page.  And in one truly silly moment, she changed her Profile photo!  Talk about dropped shoulders…

She sampled bound buttonholes, her first ones.  Cindy gave her button blanks to cover her own as well.

She pad stitched her first undercollar.

She sampled pick stitching with about eight different yarns from the Sievers Store.  She thought the 8/2 Tencel looked best.

And so the jacket progressed, and it was time for the lining, which was cut from a vintage Silk Charmeuse, also from her stash.

Terry is one of my favorite people in the whole world.  She doesn’t have much of a sewing background and had doggedly worked to improve her skills, challenging herself each time with new projects, mostly from her handwoven fabrics.  We worked on two patterns, one for a jacket she will work on next year, and this lovely vest from handwoven cotton.

She carefully cut out all the pieces after extensive pattern alterations and a couple of test garments.

She sewed tricot on the edges to keep them from raveling. (She is wearing her vest from last year).  We trimmed the armholes with the bias tricot as well.

The vest just needs buttons/snaps and of course, lots of handwork.

Meanwhile she brought some handwoven fabric and pillow forms and wanted to learn how to do piping, put in a zipper and make pillows.

The results were great, and Terry put in her first zipper to wild applause from the rest of the group. (Cindy in the foreground is wearing her first Daryl Jacket I think from 2007?)

And of course, the Daryl Alert, the one thing that keeps me sane during a workshop like this, kept me quite busy…

And there were my two additional first time students who decided to take advantage of the extra two days, especially Janene, who flew in from Alaska for the experience.  She showed us a map of where she lived.  Apparently it is only accessible by cruise ship, ferry or by plane, there are no roads to the mainland.  I can’t even begin to understand that, seeings how I’m a Jersey girl.  We have a lot of roads, and a lot of people.  It may take time, but at least our roads go somewhere.  Of course Sievers is only accessible by ferry…

Janene wove a gorgeous piece of fabric.  Apparently the design is called Whale’s tail, and I believe she made it up.  Coming from Alaska, that’s an appropriate motif!

She finished her Daryl Jacket in timely fashion.

Then she took advantage of the extra couple of days and made a vest from a small cut of handwoven she had in her suitcase.  She used a cotton fabric for the bands and side panels and her intent is to knit Alpaca insets and attach them over the cotton.  I can’t wait to see how that turns out.  (Note: I’ll be teaching a vest class at the 2015 MAFA Conference in Millersville, PA)

And finally, there is Kathleen.  Kathleen lives locally and works for Sievers in the shop.  Though she doesn’t weave, she loves to sew, and create her own fabrics with dyes.  Fit is of course, always an issue and we spent a lot of time going over pieces she had done previously to see if we could improve on the fit.

Kathleen made a Daryl Jacket from corduroy, but brought some lovely hand dyed cotton fabrics, and wanted to use them to embellish.  I had her make bias tubes with a press bar, and away she went.

She sews quickly and had the jacket and embellishment mostly finished along with the rest of the five day students, and Kathleen spent the remainder of the time working out a closure.  She loved the idea of ball buttons, and came up with the idea of a decorative bias tube along the band that contained three buttons, the tube is uninterrupted as it passes down the band.

Once she worked that out, it was more difficult to settle on how to make the loops and what shape they should take.  I’m there for support and occasional input, but Kathleen mostly figured this out by herself.  The result is beautiful and so fits her personality and design aesthetic.

I spent my evenings assembling and tracing off a couple of Marfy patterns.  There are free Marfy patterns on their website and so I downloaded the PDF’s before I left.  I don’t have any experience with Marfy patterns, they are an Italian pattern company, and I’m excited to try them out.  I understand that they have no seam allowances (no problem there, neither does the German Burda in the monthly Style magazine) and they have NO directions.  🙂

We took a final shot of the remaining seven day over achievers!  There are some beautiful jackets!

I have a busy weekend ahead of me, I’ll be in costume demoing at the Doremus House in Montville, NJ, one of George Washington’s many stops during the Revolutionary War.  That’s on Saturday the 11th, and then on Sunday the 12th, I’ll be teaching near Princeton, at the West Windsor Arts Center.  The class is a one day introduction to weaving, using a shaft loom, I have enough looms for all!  You’ll learn to set up a loom, read a draft, experiment with structure and color and go home with a small sampler of what’s possible with a loom.  Join me…

Stay tuned…