More ASE Adventures

After all the excitement of the Passion for Fashion show Saturday night, I had a whole day just to enjoy the expo. Readers, I feel like I could have spent a whole week there and not have gotten enough! It was amazing. I started out by wandering the booths. I met Nicole from Simplicity--yes, the very same Nicole who answered my Slenderette questions in this post! She hooked me up with a copy of the new Simplicity Simply the Best Sewing Book and I read it in the bathtub later that night. It's really good! I especially appreciate that they include a lot of serger options, because not many books do.

I also meandered over to the Kai Scissors booth, where they had tester scissors and fabric samples you could cut--everything from slippery lining fabric to faux leather. It was so fun! I went a little crazy with the scissor testing.

Here's the super-nice Jim from Kai. It's possible I came home with a couple new pairs of scissors as well. I've been using them a bit, and I can see why people are so crazy about Kai. They're super sharp and dreamy to cut with.

 I also took a couple classes. The first one was Copycat Sewing with the fabulous Kathy Ruddy.

Kathy is a wonderful teacher, and I had many lightbulb moments in her class. She showed us how to make a copy of a RTW garment using wax paper and your fingernail. It was awesome. She's got amazing energy and spunk, and I highly recommend you take a class with her if you can.

As I was leaving the class, I had to take a picture of this sign:

Afternoon brought a little more wandering time. I ended up at the Islander Sewing Systems booth, where Mickey (below) was nice enough to give me a personal demo of the techniques. Islander is a system using industry methods for faster, more efficient sewing--no pins! She taught me how to ease, sew curves, and install a lapped zipper using the skills and it was highly impressive.

I treated myself to one piece of fabric, a plum-colored sweater knit from Haberman. I've never sewn with sweater knits, and I'm eager to give it a try. I somehow managed to resist this Carolina Herrara sequin fabric (but let's face it, I could still mail order it, right?):

I finished up the day by taking a bra fitting class with Anne St. Clair of Needlenook Fabrics. I learned a ton (did you know that if you make your own bras, you can make odd band sizes, like a 35C? Amazing!). It made me extremely excited about trying my hand a bra making one of these days.

I didn't get a picture of Anne because she taught most of the class with her shirt off, so she could demonstrate fitting areas on her own bra. That takes guts! But she was super comfortable, and before the end of the class, everyone was lifting up their blouses to talk about their fitting issues. It was fabulous.

I will totally be going back to ASE; it was heaven on earth for sewists. Hope to see you in Novi next year!