Original Sewing & Quilt Expo – Ready for Chantilly!
Posted on 16. Jul, 2010 by Gail Yellen in Blog
It’s that time of year again. I’ll be back teaching classes and exhibiting at the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo, in Chantilly, Kansas and Minneapolis.
Here’s my class schedule for Chantilly. I hope to see you there. Register here.
Thursday, 9/30/10
The Great Gored Skirt (10:30am -11:30am)
Collage It- Green and Gorgeous! (2:30am-3:30am)
Friday, 10/1/10
Cosmetic Serger-y (8:30am-11:30am)
Saturday, 10/2/10
All About Embellishment Workshop (8:30am-11:30am)
Serger-y 101 and Cover Hem Workshops at the Sassy Sewer
Posted on 03. Jul, 2010 by Gail Yellen in Blog
Had a wonderful weekend with Blondell Howard and a terrific group of sewing enthusiasts at the Sassy Sewer in Baltimore June 25, 26 and 27th. We began Friday evening at a “meet and greet” trunk show of my samples with her American Sewing Guild Neighborhood Group. Saturday we had an all day Serger-y 101 hands-on workshop and Sunday the all day Cover Hem Workshop was on the docket. Everyone did a fantastic job and it was great to meet my Baltimore “serging sisters”
Thanks Blondell! Can’t wait to see all of you again.
Here are a few pictures from the weekend. Enjoy!
See you at The Sassy Sewer Baltimore, MD June 26th and 27th, 2010!
Posted on 10. Jun, 2010 by Gail Yellen in Blog
Looking forward to meeting all of you avid and soon-to-be avid serger fans over the weekend of June 26th and 27th in Baltimore. Blondell Howard, owner of The Sassy Sewer, has invited me to teach Serger-y 101 Saturday and the Cover Hem Workshop Sunday.
Event location: Crowne Plaza Hotel/2004 Greenspring Avenue/Hunt Valley,MD 21093
Saturday, 6/26/10 – 9:30am – 4:30pm – Serger-y 101
Sunday, 6/27/10 – 9:30am – 4:30pm – Cover hem Workshop
Serger-y-101 is an in-depth, comprehensive serger class that’s perfect for the novice or anyone who wants to get to know their serger better. We’ll cover a wide variety of stitches and fabrics as well as learn what all of the wonderful features of a serger can do to help you get professional results in this technique class. Tension headaches and the mystery of differential feed will be all cleared up in no time. Your serger will be your new best friend!
The Cover Hem Workshop will be loaded with tips and tricks for using this versatile, flexible stitch. Knits are comfortable, beautiful, wonderful for travel, exercise and business, and the cover hem stitch will give your garments a high-end, ready-to-wear finish. But let’s not stop there! Insert a zipper, highlight seams, and add it to your embellishment tool kit. You’ll be amazed at how a beautiful decorative thread in the looper can turn a utility stitch into a lovely design detail. I’ll even show you how to use a bias binder attachment to give your tees the finishing touch!
There will be a trunk show with inspiration galore. Can’t wait to get started – see you there!
Threads magazine reader’s closet
Posted on 10. May, 2010 by Gail Yellen in Blog
Just wanted to let you know that I posted pics of my latest Counterpoints Jacket using Template Set 2 and pieces from 5 different sweatshirts in Threads online reader’s closet. It’s impossible to get wool sweaters to felt in the warmer states and sweatshirts work great. And since it’s already May, it’s getting too warm for felted wool (although it’s been extremely windy and unseasonably cool in CT for the past 3 days.) The felting process is eliminated and there’s no need for interfacing or lining, so the construction is very quick. Also did some beading to highlight design details. The color combo reminds me of coffee with cream and sugar. Finished the beading while watching “It’s Complicated.” Very entertaining. I love Meryl Streep. Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin were also excellent. Next up: The Stockbridge Skirt with “It’s All About Embellishment” techniques.
Threads magazine reader’s closet
Posted on 08. May, 2010 by Gail Yellen in Blog
Just wanted to tell you that my teal linen jacket with the “Un-Be-Weavable” woven ribbon technique is featured on page 85 of the latest Threads magazine (July 2010 number 149.) It’s very exciting!!! The linen was substantial enough to allow me to pull warp and weft threads without breaking, so it was the perfect opportunity to experiment with the technique. The ribbon is hand-dyed and I beaded it at random intervals as I wove. In an upcoming post, I’ll tell you what I learned about the “Un-Be-Weavable” technique and a few tips on how to plot your placement. In the meantime, here are a few more pics of the jacket.
Jacket Back
Here’s the intersection of the warp and weft channels on the front.
Here’s the beaded button close-up. Didn’t notice how much it looks like a troll face before this photo!
Here’s the “dangle” on the left front.
And here’s a sleeve detail.
P.S. More of my hand-dyed ribbon can be seen in Jennifer Hasemann’s (as always) terrific Embroidery Essentials article on Free-motion embellishment (pgs. 24 and 25.)
Beading Cuff–What a Cool Idea
Posted on 07. May, 2010 by Gail Yellen in Blog
I love to bead but hate always having to sit in my sewing room because I need a table for the beads. Here’s a beadi-licious beading cuff I saw in The Alabama Stitch Book a couple of years ago and finally got around to making one. Not only does it allow you to bead anywhere (as long as you have decent light), but it’s very motion efficient as well. Your beading needle will pick up the beads easily and quickly from low tack painter’s tape. Since I saved so much time using this cuff, I can spend it trotting back to the bead shop because I discovered that I’m about 8 beads short for this project! (I’ll post pics of the Collage It! sweatshirt jacket that I’m working on.)
It takes about 2 minutes (if that) to construct. Just cut off the cuff ribbing from a sweatshirt.
Trim off the seam and open the double layer of ribbing to make it a single layer.
Serge or stitch a new seam.
Cut a hole for your thumb. The ribbing has a lot of stretch so it doesn’t have to be huge.
Place a piece of low-tack painter’s tape around the ribbing and stick your selected beads to the tape.
The cuff will protect your skin from the adhesive and keep your beads close at hand (no pun intended!)
Collage It! Counterpoints Jacket and Template Set 1–Sweatshirt Style
Posted on 18. Apr, 2010 by Gail Yellen in Blog
All of the signs of spring are popping up in Connecticut–even the temperatures (most of the time.) It’s getting a bit warm to wear Collage It! Counterpoints jackets made from up-cycled felted wool sweaters, so I decided to try out the technique with re-cycled sweatshirts. And guess what? It works great! The Counterpoints Jacket pattern, Template Set 1 and 5 sweatshirts were used. There’s plenty of leftover sweatshirt fabric, but I wanted to have 5 different colors–white, off-white, blue, taupe and a pinkish-red.
There are a few really great shortcuts worth mentioning. No felting necessary! What’s more comfortable than sweatshirt knit against your skin? Sweatshirt fleece is a stable knit, so no need to interface or line–hooray! But instead of tear away stabilizer, use a wash away since the wrong side will show. I had a roll of tear away, but no wash away and wanted to get started on this jacket so that it would be at least partially finished before the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo in Worcester and I could have it in our booth to show customers. Didn’t snap an “in progress” pic–too busy progressing, but here are a few of the finished jacket. I love it. The actual jacket construction was done on my serger using a 4-thread overlock stitch.
Here’s a close-up of the back wrong side. Bits of the tear away stabilizer are still under the stitching. It will probably disintegrate after several washings.
Here’s the wrong side of the sleeve. I used wash away stabilizer–no tidbits left.
This is the bust dart. It’s constructed with butted seams also. The triangle fabric of the dart is cut away and the edges are butted together and stitched using a 3-step zigzag.
I decided to match the angle of the front taupe piece when positioning the buttonhole. (Note the box of stitching around the buttonhole.) Here’s a tip for great looking machine- made buttonholes on any fabric type. Save the small leftover pieces of wash away stabilizer from other seams and place a piece over the buttonhole marking before stitching. It prevents any distortion on the fabric and also allows the buttonhole stitching to lay beautifully on top of the fabric. It’s subtle, but if you make a buttonhole on sample fabric without wash away stabilizer and another right next to it with stabilizer, you’ll see the difference. It’s amazing.
A small rectangle of the binding fabric stabilizes the wrong side of the buttonhole and creates a pretty design detail. The edges were stitched with a narrower (3.5 mm width) 3-step zigzag.
This is the edge of the pocket. To hold it flat and smooth, again the 3-step zigzag stitch was used.
Worcester Original Sewing & Quilt Expo
Posted on 13. Apr, 2010 by Gail Yellen in Blog
Had a wonderful 3 days at the Expo last weekend (April 8, 9 and 10th). It was great to see lots of old friends and make some new ones too. I loved teaching my classes and working at our booth–and we were busy! Thanks to Pam, Carol and Mary Beth for all of their help (and to Jennifer)! I didn’t get a chance to check out the other vendor booths until late Saturday afternoon and there were a lot of terrific ones.
Visited with Joyce of TSC Designs (Tsukineko Inks) http://www.teacherstamp.com/ and watched a very cool demo of a technique I’m going to experiment with very soon. It involves shaving cream, inks and fabric. Stay tuned–it’s amazing.
When I told her that I hand-dye ribbon using Tsukineko Inks and that the latest edition of The Counterpoints Jacket features rayon lining that was also hand dyed, she came over to our booth to photograph it. I went to town “gusseying up” this black linen/cotton blend jacket.
It is embellished with beaded hand-dyed ribbons woven through the fabric with my “Un-Beweavable” technique (more about that later), and “Windows” with Swarovski crystals suspended in them for “window dressing.” I also created a built-in brooch with the crystals sewn on the left front.
Here’s a shot of the back left. You can see the large round crystal suspended in the “window.”
Here we are approaching the finish line Saturday afternoon (Jennifer, me, Mary Beth).
And here’s Joyce of TSC Designs with me.
Since I didn’t have a chance to photograph Pam helping in our Worcester booth, here we are at the Cleveland Expo.
Sewing With My Niece Lauren
Posted on 02. Mar, 2010 by Gail Yellen in Blog
Spent a long-awaited weekend in Cambridge, MA with my wonderful niece, Lauren, for a sewing extravaganza. She received a sewing machine for Christmas (what could possibly be a better present?!) a year ago and we’ve been trying to plan a weekend ever since.
Lauren found a great Insulated Shopping Tote project on the Sew4Home web site http://sew4home.com/projects and it looked like the perfect project for learning a bunch of new skills. She purchased the fabric, insulated batting, etc. and I printed the instructions, packed my bag, grabbed a few of my own sewing tools and was Boston-bound.
Here’s Lauren reviewing the instructions before we got started. (Ever the excellent student.)
Here’s a shot of her using a rotary cutter for the first time. (She’s a quick learner.)
Concentrating very hard (note the furrowed brow.)
We decided to stop sewing and go out for dinner. (No pics.)
Back to work on Sunday morning in our PJs. Don’t you just love finally turning a bag right side out and admiring your work? I told Lauren that admiration is one of the most important steps in the process. She loved the boxed bottom technique.
What could be more worthy of insulation than a pint of Ben ‘n Jerry’s Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch Ice Cream?
Great job, Lauren! Thanks for a wonderful weekend–can’t wait for our next one!
Cleveland Expo Booth #527
Posted on 19. Feb, 2010 by Gail Yellen in Blog
Told you I’d let you know my booth location in the vendor area at the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo in Cleveland. Hope you’ll stop by Booth #527 and say hello. I’ll be posting a sneak peek at some of my classes, so be sure to check back soon.
Was in NYC yesterday on a fabric buying trip amid the excitement in the Garment district with Fashion Week activity. Lots of fun but it’s always a race to the finish line to exit the city before 3 pm. Just made it!