Sewing – Page 58

February 15, 2019

Community Service Around the Country

It’s a forgone conclusion that if you are a member of the American Sewing Guild, you obviously love to sew. Why else would you be a member? But in addition to a general love of sewing, one of the hallmarks of ASG has always been a love of sewing for the benefit of others. Over the past several months, as I have read chapter newsletters from the east coast to the west coast, I have seen such a variety of community service projects and the creativity in ASG and the diversity of ideas never ceases to amaze me!

You have sewn for soldiers, for domestic abuse shelters, for the homeless, for medical facilities and more.
You have combined sewing challenges with community service with ideas like making sweatshirts for a competition then donating all of them to a needy organization.
You have shared pictures of your chapter laughing and smiling, clearly enjoying the experience of working together for a common good. Your pictures confirm what I have known to be true, it truly is better to give than to receive.

If your chapter hasn’t yet joined in the fun of sewing for the community together, you may be wondering how to get started. How do you select a project and organization to donate your time and efforts to? Here are a few tips you might consider:

If you are looking for some new ideas, peruse the pictures in this article.
Check out Giving Back in the Resources section for ideas.
Don’t miss the link on that page to an additional LONG list of project ideas to choose from.
Gather up some of your chapter members and brainstorm with them. Someone just might have an organization that is near and dear to their heart. Reach out to that organization and design your own creative community service project.

Whatever organization and project you chose, I hope you will experience the great joy of giving. And I also hope you will inspire us by sharing your pictures and stories. As Albert Einstein once said, “Creativity is contagious. Pass it on!”

~ Sheryl Belson, Plano Chapter

February 1, 2019

Celebrate National Embroidery Month with ASG

High Top Sneaker Bags

When American Sewing Guild member Donna Fleming brought her “high top sneaker” bags to an ASG Princeton Chapter meeting, she certainly caused quite a stir among those who were there. Everyone wanted to check out these adorable bags she created for her granddaughters.

The bags feature great detail, yet are very simple to make using the downloadable in the hoop (ITH) embroidery designs from Disorderly Threads. Donna promised that the instructions were easy to follow, and those who later went to the site and purchased patterns from them confirmed that the instructions were exactly as Donna described. Each design comes with its own set of clearly written procedures featuring pictures every step along the way to guide even the novice machine embroiderer to success through embroidery and applique aspects of the designs.

More than Sneakers

As soon as Donna mentioned the site where she purchased the sneaker pattern, phones immediately appeared so their owners could check it out. And what designs there were—391 of them, featuring a wide variety of interests. There are cats, dogs, chickens, bears, dolphins, squirrels, bunnies, foxes, and more for the animal lovers. Not interested in animals? There are corsets, campers, slot machines, motorcycles, police cars, school buses, lips, spiders, fire hydrants, shoes, unicorns, sewing machines, sugar skulls, hamburgers, wine glasses, and even a British police call box that is sure to delight any Dr. Who fan. The bags come in several sizes beginning small for the 4 x 4 hoop, then the 5 x 7, and even a 6 x 8.5.

While most of those going to the site initially wanted to get the sneaker pattern, the vast array of designs lead everyone to purchase a different favorite. In all cases, the designs stitched out well with no problems with alignment. The completed bags are fully lined with no exposed seams. Once the project is popped out of the hoop and turned, it is ready for use. One word of caution, however; the designs are multi-stepped, so don’t expect to finish in 10 minutes. Everyone agreed that the completed bag was well worth the time spent to create it.

Even if you are not a machine embroiderer, check out these whimsical designs at www.etsy.com/shop/DisorderlyThreads. Just scanning through the listings is sure to bring a smile to your day. Now celebrate February, National Embroidery Month, and get started on your own embroidery project.

January 25, 2019

The Dior Exhibition

Dior On a beautiful, sunny day in January, the Colorado Springs ASG garment group toured the Dior exhibition held at the Denver Art Museum. I had heard glowing reviews from other friends who had attended, but I was not prepared for the scope of the offering. A selection of more than 200 couture dresses was on display, along with many drawings, mood boards and accessories. The exhibition was even more fantastic because of the way the garments were presented, having been designed by the internationally renowned architect Shohei Shigematsu.

The first room of the exhibition had the viewers walking through a dimly-lit passage filled with toiles made up in a flat black fabric (even the mannequins were black). Something about stripping the designs of all color allowed the viewer to see the beautiful structure of the garments.

We were able to see design boards and garments by Christian Dior, who was head of the house for a short time before his death. The exhibition then showed garments and their inspiration from all the lead designers who have followed, including Yves St. Laurent. Each of these designers has contributed his or her own design esthetic to the Dior line.

There are no images in this gallery.

Another striking room was filled with traditional toiles in white. The room was probably 25 feet tall and the toiles were hung on the wall at least four garments high. We were told that Dior drew his sketches without a lot of thought as to how they were going to be constructed. He expected his workers to be able to translate his designs to finished garments, the toile being the first step.

One room of about 20 ball gowns featured a video display above with images of celebrities in some of the same gowns. While we definitely couldn’t touch the garments, we were able to get quite close to some of them.

Part of Dior’s genius was to design and create accessories, even perfume, so that a woman could be clothed head to toe in Dior. One display had colorful columns that held hats, headpieces, jewelry, shoes, bags and what looked like doll clothes. It was a bold presentation that captured the breadth of the line.

In many cases, the designers of the House of Dior were influenced by what was happening in the greater art world. This influence showed up in fabric creation and garment silhouettes. In many rooms the Denver Art Museum showcased actual art that served as inspiration.

The final room of the exhibition was an extensive display of Dior around the world. The room was enormous with the garments standing on tiered discs. With almost 50 garments, the visual punch was intense.

We all agreed that once through this exhibition was not enough to take it all in. Perhaps we’ll be able to go again before it leaves Denver and makes its way to Dallas – the only two cities in the US to house the exhibition.

~Thank you to Cecelia Harris from the Colorado Springs chapter for this post.

January 7, 2019

An Easy and Precise Technique for Hand Quilting

This easy technique for hand quilting requires limited skills and mimics the precision of machine quilting.

YLI Wash-A-Way Thread — YLI Wash-A-Way Water Soluble Basting Thread

1. Load the machine, both top and in the bobbin, with water soluble thread.

2. Set the machine stitch length for the desired hand-stitch length. For the stitches to show up in this demonstration, the stitch length will be set at 4 mm. If hand-stitching for a quilt were to be done, perhaps a stitch length of 10-12 stitches per inch would be used.

3. Cut the quilt sandwich (back, batting, top) and mark the design on the top fabric. For this demonstration, simple straight lines were used, but you can use any design of your choosing.

4. Stitch along the marked design lines with the water soluble thread. Optionally, you can mark and stitch the design on the top only, then layer the quilt and stitch through all layers during the hand-stitching process.

5. For straight stitching, use the quilting guide that comes with your machine. Set it for the distance from the center needle position and allow the guide to follow along the previous line of stitching.

6. The stitching lines provide a guide for the hand stitching. Thread your needle using either hand quilting thread or a colorful embroidery floss (using as many strands as you’d like).

7. Following the stitching line, insert the needle in and out the holes created by the machine stitching. Mak sure the stitching goes through the back side, catching all layers.

8. Complete all the rows of hand-stitching, following along the machine-stitched line.