{Sassy Southern Sewing 2015}
Another day of Trisha Smith class at Sassy Southern Sewing School. It was a day of learning new skills, sewing a dress in yummy fabric, enjoying delicious lunch and dinner, meeting more sewing ladies, filling my bag with swag, and shopping the vendors. For its first year, this sewing conference has not disappointed. While I am tired from concentrating on sewing all day, I am feeling good about my time here.
In class today, we worked on the Peg Pocket Dress by Trisha Smith. The dress has a buttoned double-breasted bodice, a buttoned back, gathered skirts, and the best pockets in the front for my girlie to fill with goodies. The pockets are made by cutting open a half circle and then adding pleats to the sides to make the pockets puff out the front – just darling! The fabric Trisha selected for the project is a bright and cheery print coordinated with a coral solid and the hot yellow gingham. The dress offers so many new techniques for me including a back skirt placket, matching fabric prints, covered buttons, and corded piping. Even though I didn’t complete sewing the dress today, I learned and practiced many skills.
Same as Day 1, Trisha shared her wisdom with us. Today I counted 8 new lessons from her – I am just saying that if you want to improve your sewing technique, take a class from a proven expert like Trisha. There is so many tips and tricks that I have picked up in only 2 days that will advance my sewing overall. Whether my project is a quick skirt or T-shirt that takes little expertise or a couture garment that requires hours of commitment, what I have learned here at Sassy Southern Sewing will improve my project. But I digress….. I don’t want to share all of her ‘wizardry’ here (like her Perfectly-Puckerless-Placket) , but today’s best lessons from Trisha are:
1 – Use glue stick to adhere fabric to button cap before shoving in the rubber button maker… it holds the fabric in place to make smoother gather for sealing the button bottom on (my explanation is tough to follow – see the picture)
2 – Check the fold of the fabric from being on the bolt to know the front verses the back of the fabric… this is useful for solids that look the same on the front and back
3 – Hold up tissue paper patterns with removable tape, available in office supplies… the tape will not tear the tissue paper, will not damage window or walls, but will hold up those patterns for tracing and drawing – pure awesomeness!
Examples of clothes from Trisha’s Treasures patterns:
Tomorrow we will be working on an heirloom dress. This will be a first for me… can’t wait!