All posts tagged: sewing

How do you describe your sewing level?

I’ve been thinking about how we define ourselves as sewers/seamstresses/seamsters, partly as a personal thing, and partly as a teacher. I started considering this when I signed up for Sewing Pattern Review. They ask your skill level – beginner, intermediate, advanced, couture. What on earth should I put? I make garments that many seamtresses would never dream of without batting an eye, and my fabric knowledge is considerable, but when it comes to some modern techniques, I don’t have much experience. Now that I’m teaching I’m working on a way for students to categorize their skill level for classes. We start out with Absolute Beginners, but the next class they take is Intermediate, which many of the students find amusing and flattering. They say “surely I’m not an intermediate sewer!”. Sure, they’ve never tackled a pattern or made a garment, but student come out of my Absolute Beginners class knowing how to set a zips, construct a basic garment, sew a number of stitches precisely, and how to choose fabrics (which I firmly believe is …

Why I’ve been sewing with acrylic (and why I’ll never do it again).

Published by The Dreamstress

You may have noticed that I’ve sewn two things recently with cheap acrylic fabric: my ‘Win in Black and White‘ 1940s swing coat, and the Reproduction jacket. I complained about working with acrylic with both items, and Lynn even called me on it with the reproduction jacket, point out that “it is not worth wasting good sewing skill and time on fabric that is less than the best one can afford.” And she’s absolutely right! And this is something I know, and have known since my earliest sewing days. I am the product of fabric snobs (in the nicest possible way). My mother is a fabric snob who managed to live through the 1970s without every wearing synthetic clothes. My first sewing teacher taught me to work with lovely quality quilting cottons, and then I went away to university where I worked for a professional costume shop that only used the best materials. As a historic seamstress, my stash is full of natural fibres: I sew in silks and linens, cottons and wools. I barely …

Madame Ornata’s sapphire blue 1930’s dress – the bodice

Published by The Dreamstress

I’ve skipped ahead a bit with Madame Ornata’s 1930s dress, showing you the finished (well, mostly) product before all the construction shots, so it’s time for a re-cap. To make the slippery silk charmeuse easier to work with, and to help the bodice hang better (and hide any lumps and bumps), we flat lined the bodice pieces in an adorable cotton print from Madame O’s stash. Madame O and I worked on the dress together – one person pinning and ironing while the other person sewed. It was a very fun and efficient way to sew. The skirt is topstitched to the bodice, but we tried to hide the stitching everywhere else on the dress, so there was a lot of very, very careful, slow stitching. For the most part, I was the sewer, and Madame O was the ironer and pinner, and (most importantly), fetcher of cups of tea. With everything assembled, we did a final fitting. I ended up having to take in the sides of the bust a tiny bit to make …