Do You Do Sewing Conventions?

{photo from ASE's Facebook page}

I remember the days when I used to dream wistfully of going to the sewing conventions. How magical they seemed! Classes, vendors, fashion shows . . . And now I'm a regular attendee and sometimes even a teacher! (Someone pinch me, please.)

Later this week it's time for the American Sewing Expo in Novi, Michigan. You can see the entire course brochure here. (On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I'll be teaching "Intro to Retro Dressmaking" from 11-noon and "Writing a Successful Sewing Blog" from 2:45 to 3:45.)

Are you into sewing expos--or are you interested in maybe someday attending? If you're not going to this one, I would totally recommend saving your pennies for a future trip. Personally, I used to think that  these shows were just for quilting/crafty types. But the wealth of resources for garment sewing is astounding. And the classes! Susan Khalje, Kenneth King, and Claire Shaeffer all in one place. (Plus: shopping! There are vendors for everything from scissors to fancy fabrics to sewing machines and accessories.)

I would love to see a younger demographic start attending these shows regularly--but do you think that's a tall order? Going to the shows certainly requires a wad of disposable income. What do you think organizers could do to get a new generation involved in the shows? (In my imagination, we all share hotel rooms to save money and it becomes a huge sewing slumber party and the convention floor is taken over by tattooed ladies and their bearded hipster boyfriends.)

Have you ever gone to a sewing show? Do you think you might in the future?

Hi from Salt Lake City!

Dear readers, I'm writing this from Utah with an adorable black cat in my lap. His name is Ed. Isn't he handsome?

I'm here for the Sewing Summit this weekend, and came a bit early with my friend Ashlee, who is originally from Salt Lake. I'm staying at her lovely family's lovely house with this lovely temporary cat, who is helping me bear the separation from my own adorable kitties a bit better. I'm working on my book today and prepping my classes for the Sewing Summit, but don't worry--it's not all work! I'll have time to explore some vintage shops here later today and relax a bit too. And hopefully find some time to play around on Ashlee's mom's amazing vintage sewing machine. It's pink!

I've been so fortunate to see so many parts of the country this year: St. Paul, Cleveland, Novi, and now Salt Lake City. (And Orlando next week!) I've truly liked each one of them, and the change of pace is refreshing. I've been so stressed at home, and traveling can certainly be stressful too. But all the gallivanting has really helped me detach from my day-to-day life, which is a kind of a good thing right now!

More to come on the Sewing Summit and my adventures in Utah! How is everything in your neck of the woods?

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!

Passion for Fashion Recap

Hey friends! I just landed in home in New York, and I have SO MUCH to tell you about American Sewing Expo. In fact, it probably won't fit in one post. So let's start with the event that brought me to the expo: the contest! As I mentioned last week, I was one of the finalists in the Passion for Fashion competition, a live Project Runway-style challenge. Thursday night we met at the expo center and picked our models in random numerical order. I was 9th out of 12, but still got an incredible model named Samia. Little did I know exactly how perfect she would be for my creation. (See what I did there? Foreshadowing!)

Friday morning we arrived early at the show and received our challenge from Janet Pray, president of ASE and all-around awesome lady. It was very reality TV: we walked into a room with movie posters hanging all around the walls. The challenge? Pick a movie poster and design an ensemble inspired by the movie, a character in it, or the poster itself. There were lots of great choices: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Alice in Wonderland, Casablanca. But I knew which one I had to have:

Frida Kahlo is one of my favorite artists, as well as a style icon of mine (blogged here!). Readers, I had to have it. Luckily I was 4th to pick (in reverse order from model selection) and got it easily. (I later found out that no one else wanted it anyway!)

We got to work on sketching. I immediately thought of Frida's body cast--she was in a horrific bus accident in her teens, which resulted in massive injuries (including a broken spinal column) and necessitated 35 surgeries over the course of her life to correct. She began painting while she was bed-ridden, and later would paint her body casts, using a mirror to help her.

I saw one of her casts in person at the Casa Azul in Mexico City, and it looked like a strapless bustier to me. I also thought of skeletons--Frida's broken bones and Day of the Dead sugar skulls--and a skeletal structure became integral to the design.

After sketching, we were given $100 to shop for supplies on the expo floor. Here I am picking out some felted wool rayon at Crawford Designs. I also bought fabric at Haberman and Sew Batik, and a couple gorgeous trims from Soutache.

 Anyway, long story short, here's the outfit I made over the course of the challenge:

The bustier was made in navy cotton, and I used ivory petersham ribbon on the outside as external casings for spiral steel boning. I arranged the ribbon in a subtle ribcage design and adorned it with bows, because Frida was nothing if not feminine. The back is similar, without the bows. There is vertical and horizonal boning, creating a cage effect.

The skirt is batik, as Frida loved folk art. There's horsehair in the hem (of course!) and border-print ruffles peeking out from below. The capelet is in a saffron-colored felted wool/rayon, and it elongated Samia's neck in the way Frida's portraits often did (you can check out some portraits here if you're interested. My favorite is "Broken Column."). The final touch was a bright rose-red silk ribbon which was twisted through Samia's hair.

How perfect is she???

I draped all three garment patterns, which felt like a big accomplishment. We had to sew everything over Friday and Saturday (in the middle of the expo floor, no less), ending at 3pm to get ready for the big runway show. 

We were interviewed by the judges first (one of them was Suede from Project Runway Season 5), and it was hard. I was nervous.

We followed that up with the runway show, where we got to talk about our inspiration for the garments. Samia looked stunning. After all the garments were presented, they announced the top six and I made it! We were interviewed by the judges and some audience members while onstage (I felt like I was in a pageant). We made our way backstage while the judges deliberated.

We came back out and the winners were announced, starting with third place. It was me! Hurrah! I won a Babylock Melody sewing machine.

Here are the winning garments. The center is First Place (inspired by Alice in Wonderland) and on the right is Second Place (inspired by 101 Dalmatians).

Overall, it was a fantastic experience. Everyone was super nice (no reality show back-stabbing) and it got me thinking outside of my usual design choices. The sewing wasn't as stressful as I anticipated; the hard part was the designing. I think I'll have more to write about that later--as well as my recap of the expo itself, of course. I have the garments home with me, so I can show you more construction details if you're interested. Just don't ask to see how the ruffles are attached--that was the one time crunch! (Don't worry, it's not glue or staples.) It's just not very pretty . . . and of course everyone at the reception afterwards wanted to flip up her hem and inspect it. Oy. Anyway, more to come!