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From the World’s Largest Textile Garage Sale
Readers, Yesterday I attended my favorite event of any kind in the whole year: a gigantic rummage sale to raise funds for the Textile Center in Minneapolis. I considered not going this year, since...
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Project: Vogue 4036 Jacket, (1959), Part 2
Readers, Before cutting into my wool-synthetic blend for this jacket I knew I’d have to tame its ravelly nature. My ravelly fabric, backlit using my old lightbox. Now you can clearly see how loosely...
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Bolts from the Blue
Readers, It started early yesterday morning when I was checking out the latest conversations on PatternReview.com. “What Minnesota PR members will I see Saturday morning at the Guthrie Theater Fabric...
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Temperamental Journey
Readers, It’s late August, the Minnesota State Fair is underway, and tomorrow’s forecast is for the upper 90s. But my mind has turned to sewing for fall. Tomorrow I’ll leave on a ten-day trip to Ohio...
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Cheap But Not Cheerful
Readers, This floral stretch cotton, at ease. It was a cheap and cheerful fabric of unlisted fiber content that I picked up at S.R. Harris Fabric Outlet a few years ago that was sitting in my stash...
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Sale Away
Readers, Wearing the coat I recently finished, I dug through the wools table for more treasures. Back from the Textile Center Garage Sale, an annual one-day event many sewers, including me, look...
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Fabric Stash-Busting, continued
Readers, the brow is wrinkled. If only I could escort you to my basement sewing domain it would be so easy to demonstrate how I evaluated each of my fabrics and decided whether to keep or release it....
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Fabric Stash-Busting Without Tears
Readers, Does the prospect of editing your fabric stash–you do have one, don’t you?–fill you with excitement? Dread? Curiosity? I had all those feelings as I approached the task of evaluating each...
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Developing My Knit Wits
Readers, Recently I’ve been spending a little time every day taking PatternReview.com’s online class Understanding Knit Fabrics, taught by Sarah Veblen. I’ve sewn acres of woven fabrics but only about...
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Sneaky Old Sunk-Cost Thinking
Readers, Isn’t it uplifting to read a post where a knotty question is presented in the beginning, followed by a few colorful missteps in the middle, leading to a predictable, satisfying conclusion?...
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What Instructions Will Never Tell You
Readers, I don’t think it’s emphasized nearly enough how much this thing we call “sewing” is a process of formulating questions, cracking puzzles, experimenting, course-correcting, and adjusting...
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Takeaways from New York
Readers, Jack and I returned last Thursday from our week in New York. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet of museum-visiting, Garment District-shopping, and long-distance walking. Here’s a day-by-day...
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From the Fabric and Button Stashes: New Pairings
Readers, What would bring out the best qualities in my latest finds? Among the ridiculously wonderful simple pleasures in my life as a sewer is seeing how my latest acquisitions go together with what’s...
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From the World’s Largest Textile Garage Sale
Readers, Yesterday I attended my favorite event of any kind in the whole year: a gigantic rummage sale to raise funds for the Textile Center in Minneapolis. I considered not going this year, since...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Project: Vogue 4036 Jacket, (1959), Part 2
Readers, Before cutting into my wool-synthetic blend for this jacket I knew I’d have to tame its ravelly nature. My ravelly fabric, backlit using my old lightbox. Now you can clearly see how loosely...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Free, Fast, and Easy; Fun, Reversible–and Inspiring
Readers, For the last month or so I have been opening my closet door to behold not only my spring-summer clothes and accessories but–my spring-summer fabrics! My very small warm-weather wardrobe is...
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Why Am I Subscribing to Swatch Services?
Readers, Do you subscribe to swatching services from fabric vendors? If you do, do you buy much fabric or use the matching service for coordinating thread, linings, interfacings or buttons? Do you...
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My Latest “Avoid Compounding Errors” Moment
Readers, Of all the great things my sewing teacher Edith has told me, the one that has made the biggest impression is “Avoid compounding errors.” At the time she was talking about the need to be...
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Decisions, decisions
Readers, Yesterday I wrote this post and was almost finished with it when I had to stop for the day. This morning I sat down to finish it, add images, and hit Publish. I reread what I wrote and–saw a...
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Valancing Act
Readers, What did it take to go from this: A very sad valance accompanying spindly mini-blinds in the kitchen of our 1958 house when we bought it. To this: The sad valance is gone, thankfully–but what...
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