What am I doing for the summer- now that it’s half over? Obviously not blogging. Having a great “staycation” time in the city visiting museums,  doing some sewing working on “UFO’s” ( unidentified fabric objects ) in the sewing room,  and I am teaching-working with students who have not left the city for the summer.

OK friends- time to boast on  some of my students. These are the people who inspire me to sew. WHY? Because the quality that ties them all together( and that I so admire..) is that they are not afraid to try something new in learning sewing technique and to go BOLD in what they want to learn to sew and create. They inspire me to have that same  attitude and quality about my sewing goals. I so enjoy sewing with them.

I love Cindy.  She always wants to do something new that she has never done before in sewing. Cindy is working on a  vintage  style dress to wear to a  late summer wedding. It’s a pattern that has LOTS of darts ( which help support the fit) sprouting from a very interesting placed side princess seam line. She may be a little camera shy with that dress but I will see what picture of her in  the finished dress I can coax out of her.

Then there is Claire.

Claire has not been sewing for years on end, but  between YouTube, her mom, and just plain old tenacity, Ms. Claire taught herself how to sew. She pulls me along to offer her any fine tuning input when she needs it. She finished this dress two weeks ago to wear it to a wedding in Nantucket. It’s blue lace upon cream colored silk. Claire had never worked with lace before. I think she got great results. Just the “arm candy” for her guy’s arm that I hoped she would be in the dress.

Lastly there’s Jil.

 I taught a bra sewing seminar in New Jersey  couple of weeks ago to a group of women that I know through the Association of Sewing and Design Professionals (ASDP). A gal from the American Sewing Guild joined in as well. Bless her heart- the gal fro ASG drove 2hrs from  just outside of Philidelphia  just to get to our class and learn how to make bras for herself. Yep- again inspirational tenacity in wanting to learn how to sew something new!

In order for everyone to learn bra making  for the first time  and not worry about trying to fit their own size as yet, I gave everyone in the class the same sample size to sew up. It just so happened that the class sample was Jil’s size. ( *SIGH*… wished that was ME when I first learned… Anyway-) I was really happy for Jil as she finished her first bra, put it on HOT off the sewing machine- and it fit. Knowing Jil she will probably do more creative tweaking to the pattern here and there to really customize it for herself. I wouldn’t be surprised in the coming months to see Jil flashing her lingerie at us in monthly meetings for “show and tell” garment review. I’m sure it will be pretty!

Another gal in the group-Gloria- gave us the most interesting bra- and the best laugh- of the class. Gloria was in the middle of telling the group an interesting story- just keeping the fun conversation going while we were all sewing. The funny thing was, when I did my classroom “rounds” to check on  and support everyone, I checked in on Gloria’s bra sample.  I noticed Gloria had done the most interesting configuration of bra cup insertion. Left cup in the right cup space. Right cup in the left cup space with shoulder straps in the center( see photo below). Just the thought of what that bra would do to the nipple direction of ANY woman’s Boobs made us all (including Gloria)  laugh.

I continue on with the rest of my summer sewing and  will start Fall sewing. I want to get some tailoring done, but I really want to get some clothes done to wear because I have plans to go to Camp Workroom Social. I will not be teaching, but I am going to enjoy the  sewing company and I am thinking it it will be a great Fall sewing retreat for me. Don’t want to be “naked in the woods” so I better get to sewing up the wools in my stash.

I am committed to the finishing up of my jeans UFO that I have have for  LOOOOG while now. Almost done!

      Almost done!!

Happy summer!