Hello, friends! I’m almost always sewing, but I am also always reading (you are correctly surmising that it leaves little time for other hum drum activities. So what?). I don’t venture to speed read as many books as I can, though. Sometimes just two pages of a current read will give me that unexplainable and… Read More On Current and Finished Reads. #Books #Non-Sewing
If you’re unaware, I sew one muslin a year as a pattern tester for Threads magazine, I follow their general guidelines on the details, style lines and size to include in the muslin —they have standards. Other than that, I am not a muslin maker for myself. I mean, I don’t buy muslin fabric to… Read More A Rare Muslin (aka Toile): What I Include and Ignore
April is Earth month and before it ends for the year 2020, I would love to share a vintage sewing book with you. The New Encyclopedia of Modern Sewing, circa 1946. There is no author, but it is “Edited by Frances Blondin”. It’s Published by Wm. H. Wise and Co., Inc. “Through special arrangement made… Read More Upcycling Clothes in 1946
There have been countless books written on the art of embellishing a cloth surface or adding interest with “in-cloth” fabric manipulation. I own a few, plus a few more stored on another shelf, and recently became the proud owner of Ellen Miller’s text-book size tome “Creating Couture Embellishment”. The sheer size of the book distinguishes… Read More Science of Sewn Embellishments: “Creating Couture Embellishment”, the Book
“In Praise of the Needlewoman”: The image above is of a book of paintings depicting girls and women sewing, by Gail Carolyn Sirna As an obsessed sewing hobbyist, I’m excited when a book of fiction crosses my path and has the word “seamstress” or “pattern-maker” or “collection” in the title. Today, I’m sharing some books… Read More Sewing Themed Fiction
Hi readers! This post features an item I made 2 years ago, and about which I wrote a couple of blog posts for the American Sewing Guild, where I was employed at the time. You can find the posts here and here. The original collar was featured in “Gifts You Can Make Yourself”, a book from the… Read More Vintage Lace Collar
Blog post #67 is not about sewing. We’re going off on a tangent and shining some beams on the software company which allows me to write this blog: WordPress.com. I usually stop in my tracks for any book title that is fashion related. Therefore author Scott Berkun’s book caused a stop-in-your-tracks moment (um, the word “pants”). A second look… Read More Some Things I Learned From “The Year Without Pants”, a Book About WordPress.com and the Future of Work
There should be a UFO (unfinished object) month celebrated in the sewing community at least once a year. Look what I found in my unfinished sewing archives (aka UFOs). An indigo blue 14” square, embellished with the Japanese folk embroidery called Sashiko (s-a-a-sh-i-k-o). This was a class project for Sashiko expert Nancy Shriber’s class – um,… Read More Double Zippered Pouch
It’s tip time again! This time from a book long out of print from a pattern company long out of business. I wish Spadea Pattern Company was still operating since their designs were all from well known designers. The book referred to in the blog title is “The Spadea Sewing Book. Sewing Tips by World… Read More 3 Sewing Tips from a Vintage Sewing Book
What do coins, CDs, food skewers, toothpicks and knit fabric have in common? This…. There’s creativity, and then there is genius, uber-creative thinking which produces work like Rowan Mersh’s. In this short post, I want to share a few images of works by the English designer, as featured in the book “Fashioning Fabrics”, 2006, edited by Sandy Black,… Read More Artist Rowan Mersh and Knit Fabric
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