Category: Learn to Sew Blog

This past Wednesday marked the end of another marking period for the Hoboken Charter School. With that comes the end of the Year “Arts Cafe”. For this marking period I was lucky enough to teach 9 high school aged ladies how to design and actually sew their own fun accessories. At the Fashion Show, they had the opportunity to show off their wares on the runway. I was able to take a couple of shots at the Fashion Show and thought I might share them with you all:

All you have to do is design it and they will print it for you. Ahhhhh Spoonflower.com!

So, last week in one of the beginner Fashion Lab Boot Camp Classes, when one of my newly converted stitchers said, okay, so I want to get this fabric that has seahorses carrying flags with my initials on it. Where do I get that????

My first reaction was to kind of laugh to myself and think, wow that is kind of a TALL fabric order… She has a lot of things she wants going on on this fabric…. Not really sure about this one…

Now – I pride myself at having the ability to find my students and customers just about any fabric they can dream up. Between NYC’s garment district and my resources online, I can find just about any fabric, but this one was going to be a doozy. But THEN i remembered about the Spoonflower Sight.

I haven’t tried to design and print my own fabric yet (regretably) but check it out right now.

You design the fabric, send them the artwork for the design and then they send you a yard of it printed on quilt quality cotton for $18. Cheap if you ask me cause they have no minimums! And you can enter your fabric design in the fabric of the week contest! Good Stuff!

…but who really cares?

I know I will still be watching. I think that Mizrahi has the potential to be just as much of a “charactar” as Tim Gund and Kelly Rowland has GOT to be better than Heidi Klum…

Premiers on May 7th, and I cannot wait!

Are you with me?

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From the Bravotv.com Website:
The Fashion Show premieres on Bravo on Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. Fifteen professional designers will compete in this fashion creative competition series for a chance to have their designs sold in the retail market and win a $125,000 prize.
Internationally acclaimed designer Isaac Mizrahi shares hosting duties with four-time Grammy Award-winning performer and actress Kelly Rowland. Mizrahi and Rowland will also serve as judges alongside fashion luminary and Senior Vice President of IMG Fashion, Fern Mallis.
Each week the designers will be put to the test and will have to face off in two challenges – the Harper’s Bazaar Mini Challenge, judged by the magazine’s Special Projects Director Laura Brown, and the elimination challenge. In the end, America will choose which contestant will have a clothing line available for retail and win the $125,000 prize.

…but who really cares?

I know I will still be watching. I think that Mizrahi has the potential to be just as much of a “charactar” as Tim Gund and Kelly Rowland has GOT to be better than Heidi Klum…

Premiers on May 7th, and I cannot wait!

Are you with me?

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

From the Bravotv.com Website:
The Fashion Show premieres on Bravo on Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. Fifteen professional designers will compete in this fashion creative competition series for a chance to have their designs sold in the retail market and win a $125,000 prize.
Internationally acclaimed designer Isaac Mizrahi shares hosting duties with four-time Grammy Award-winning performer and actress Kelly Rowland. Mizrahi and Rowland will also serve as judges alongside fashion luminary and Senior Vice President of IMG Fashion, Fern Mallis.
Each week the designers will be put to the test and will have to face off in two challenges – the Harper’s Bazaar Mini Challenge, judged by the magazine’s Special Projects Director Laura Brown, and the elimination challenge. In the end, America will choose which contestant will have a clothing line available for retail and win the $125,000 prize.

Well Hallelujah! They have come to some sort of agreement in court and the *already taped* 6th season of Project Runway will air. (Sigh of relief)

It’s coming on this summer and it will be aired on Lifetime.

I suppose this is a little annoying because who likes to watch TV in the summer. But thanks to Adam, we have a DVR now and that is going to come in really handy!

Here is the article from the AP.

Found these two chairs yesterday when I was parking my car in Hoboken. Thought they had great lines and a kind of cool back. Since we have a dinner table that seats like 17, thought it couldn’t hurt to give these babies a face-lift with some awesome upholstery fabric I had stashed.

Here is the result. Not a massive change, but it’s amazing what a new new seat cover will add to a piece of furniture and it only took about 20 minutes!

And even though there are only two of them, they look great around the butcher block table with the other chairs, even if the other chairs are orange vinyl and metal ; )

These photos really don’t do them justice. One of these days I will photograph them with my real camera (not the camera phone) and you can see for yourself, a little better.

Found these two chairs yesterday when I was parking my car in Hoboken. Thought they had great lines and a kind of cool back. Since we have a dinner table that seats like 17, thought it couldn’t hurt to give these babies a face-lift with some awesome upholstery fabric I had stashed.

Here is the result. Not a massive change, but it’s amazing what a new new seat cover will add to a piece of furniture and it only took about 20 minutes!

And even though there are only two of them, they look great around the butcher block table with the other chairs, even if the other chairs are orange vinyl and metal ; )

These photos really don’t do them justice. One of these days I will photograph them with my real camera (not the camera phone) and you can see for yourself, a little better.

I had the opportunity to take a look at Heather Ross’ new book, Weekend Sewing at our last sewing Meet Up. One of the attendees had just gotten it as a gift and brought it to the meeting for everyone to check out.

I was immediately in love with all the realy unique projects the book was filled with. I saw a lot of things that I have not seen before in sewing books and that is what gets me really excited. One that sticks out it in my mind is this newborn kimono shirt that is going to be my next staple gift for baby showers. It’s absolutely adorable and I have never seen a pattern for it so small!

The other thing that I think I fell in love with about Heather’s book is all the vintage sewing machines that were photographed with the projects. I seem to have become a collector of broken vintage sewing machines, as my shop is full of them now.
Whether it’s machines that we have been using for class that break down, or adorable pastel colored sewing machines that I come across at flea markets and just can’t resist having, even though they don’t work. In my opinion they make great decorations at the shop.

Well, Heather of Weekend Sewing has a passion for vintage sewing machines as well. See what she had to say to Cathy of California about old machiens on her blog here.

Meet up just ended and I thought it went so great! We had less people than expected but that allowed us to all use the sewing machines and actually complete a little project. We all made little patchwork stuffed birds. So adorable. I took some photos and ate way to many sweets. Can’t wait for the April meet up when we are going to take the group to NYC for some fabric shopping. Tentative date of 4/25/09 is set, but will confirm that very shortly!

So I have never really been a fan of Wal*Mart in the first place. We all know about their unfair labor practices and that all their stuff is made in India and Indonesia and some other third world counties where the workers are paid pennies per hour. But you can always count a pretty good freak show the minute you get out of your car and into the Wal*Mart parking lot.

Around here (Hudson County, NJ) there really is no need to ever set foot into Wal*Mart cause there are so many others of these huge “box” stores, not to mention, enough specialty boutique stores to never even need a “box” store to begin with. And as far where to purchase quick sewing supplies, I tended to head to the Rag Shop. I didn’t love the Rag Shop, but it did it’s job when I was in need of straight pins or last minute black satin to finish up an order that had to go out. I never thought about having to check out the Wal*Mart in Seacaucus before…That is… Until all the Rag Shops shut their doors.

Well, I had been putting off buying straight pins for a week or so and we were down to just about none at the studio and we were all sick of using the small metal head pins, cause they just hurt your fingers. So I ventured off to Wal*Mart to pick some up and I figured I would browse through their Simplicity Sewing Pattern Section while I was there. As I am heading to the sewing section, I am seeing the space is just about completely empty. They have packed up all the sewing supplies and pattern display cases to leave an almost empty space where they used to be. I spy a huge garbage pail, full to the brim with Simplicty Sewing Patterns and breathe a sigh of relief thinking, ooooh they are probably going to be on sale and I can browse through and buy a bunch to stock up on new sewing patterns… Nope, not the case. When I asked the sales woman if I could look through she said no, they were all going in the trash.

Well that just didn’t seem right so I kept asking her to make sure I was understannding correctly and she directed me to her manager that was packing nearby. He confirmed that yes, they were indeed going in the trash and I could not look through them, purchase them or take any…

WOW! Wal*Mart would rather dump a bunch of useful, perfectly good sewing patterns in a landfill somewhere, than sell them to a customer…. So that is why I NEVER have to set foot in a Wal*Mart again.