I have totally fallen in love with the concept of only shopping local or small indie shops this year. Meeting and getting to know real people that sew brings me such joy. Although, any opportunity to make a new dress is all right with me…
Waynesville’s, Fabric Shack, is a fabric store […]
Have you seen all the new outdoor chairs that have handles, covers with straps or convert to a backpack? Since the Levitt Pavilion opened in Dayton we have lugged our almost 20 year old outdoor folding chairs, drinks and stuff down to see awesome music shows. Sometimes if a show is […]
If you even remotely dabble in the sewing world you have probably heard the rumors about how challenging fine fabrics like silk, satin, chiffon, georgette and many more slippery goodies, can be.
It is my opinion that when learning anything new and different there are always lots of problems that pop up. I am here to […]
We are all seeing a movement called “Mindful Clothing.” The trend is popping up everywhere again. It’s a few things, fixing and mending what you own, buying handmade clothing, buying vintage, up-cycling and staying away from fast fashion. In the 1940s there was the “Make do and Mend” movement, a time heavily influenced by WWII […]
Great things are often invented from having some type of major dilemma. My last venture was learning to design fabric on Spoonflower. I have almost 150 fabric designs in my Spoonflower shop and the best part is you can have them printed on any fabric.
To sell your fabric designs on Spoonflower […]
Can you agree that after almost 20 years of experience a project should be a lot easier? I am about to repeat history and share one of the first dresses I made and some of the struggles I remembered while making it again almost 20 years later.
In 2001 my mother and I were supposed to […]
Wait until you see how easy this is! Once that’s done, I will talk more about zero waste dress design and what inspired me.
Have you ever wished one of your garments was just a slightly different color or perhaps a shade darker? I may have the answer for you – tea staining. I suggest testing […]
Every time I teach my pattern reading and layout class I demo how to cut out another dress. As you may imagine they are starting to add up. Because I do not need the same dress style over and over I also show how easy it is to hack or alter a pattern using the […]
What influences you? Beyond Pinterest, old black and white movies and new time period television shows influence some of my designs. In 2011 and 12 I had a slight obsession with the dresses the women wore on the original Star Trek series. These little dresses are perfect to wear with leggings and boots in the […]
What makes a garment easy to sew? No closures, no lining and very little advanced techniques being used. The only fancy thing here was the welted pocket. You may leave that out or do a patch pocket.
You may remember my other quilt top jelly roll dress from last fall. Some of […]
