16 Hours of Sewing

16 hours of sewing... well not really.  I just completed teaching another session of Introduction to Sewing 1 Intensive at the Sewing Studio in Manhattan.  I am always so impressed with the results.  These students started four weeks ago knowing nothing about sewing, fabric, patterns, grain, zippers and measuring the body.   Grain? like 7 grain bread?  No. 

I taught them how to use a machine, how to wind a bobbin,  we moved on how to make a drawstring bag and how to make a zipper pouch.  And their final project, picking a pattern and making a skirt that has a zipper.  It was 4 weeks long and it went by so fast.  These were the results. Here are 3 skirts, 3 varieties.  All have a zipper, darts and was adjusted to fit the sewist. 

I am so happy and impressed with these ladies.  They were a great group to spend a Saturday afternoon with.

Animal Camo

I received a custom order the other day on etsy. A woman saw my animal camo mini tote. I love this fabric so much. It is so cool and fun. Of course it is Michael Miller. The woman wanted a larger tote in the same fabric, fortunately I did have enough fabric.
So I took some pics of the building process. I call this the City Tote. Living in the city I sometimes don't make it home in between errands and stops. So many times I will carry my laptop, gym clothes and regular purse stuff. This tote will hold it all!
The original pattern came from Lotta Jansdotter http://www.jansdotter.com
I deleted a few details and added a few.

In this shot, I added heavy weight fusible nterfacing to the outside fabric to give it some stability.

The inside of the bag is built the same way as the shell. I used a canvas for the inside, to give some body and durability.

Drop the liner into the shell and added bias tape around the top.

Double needle those straps!

Finished!

If you decide to make this bag and have some questions feel free to ask me!

Sewing classes 101 and 102- my student's projects

This past weekend I wrapped up 2 of the sewing classes I teach at 3rdward. Both classes were filled with interesting and eager students. Saturday's class was Sewing 101. I teach them how to make a grocery bag- one sided or reversible or they can make a cafe apron.  It's always interesting to see how many aprons will be sewn and how many bags. In this class it was split pretty evenly. Most people do finish the first project and start on the second one before the 3 session class ends.

This was very cool fabric, it was a poly mix and had a very breezy quality.

I loved the royal blue waistband. It totally pops out with the striped fabric.

Sewing 102 ended on Sunday. Mostly girls with our one guy Noel. Noel took my 101, he picked up sewing with no problem and worked on a very cool black denim messenger bag. All the ladies did the A Line skirt, denim was the most popular chosen fabric. This was a great group of people. I don't think anyone wanted the class to end, including me.

Charlotte added 2 5 point pockets to her's.

Sarah added an angled flap 5 point pocket

darts in the back

Students are so hard on themselves. They don't realise not only did they learn how to use a sewing machine, they made something!

More photos here http://3rdward.tumblr.com/tagged/craft/page/2