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Easy Peasy Drawstring
Marcy Tilton and Gwen Spencer share a super simple and quick way to make a drawstring, step-by-step. No more stitching and turning in tight little corners.
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Button Up Pull Over Dress — Butterick 5881
Here is Gwen Spencer's rendition of Katherine Tilton pattern Butterick 5881. The pattern calls for 2 separate tunics/layers to be joined together. Gwen separated the two, wears them together, but also wears the white under layer separately. The collaged fabric started with playing around with a small piece of fabric when she was at the Design Outside the Lines retreat. That small section lead to the final combination of fabrics and stitching. The narrow yellow green strips are cotton cut on the bias. The glass buttons are vintage. She added a bit of black machine stitching on the bias neck bands to tie things together. Gwen left spaces in the stitching on the twill tape, then threaded the yellow-green cotton bias strips over and under.
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The Cirque Dress — Vogue 9112
I want to sew more like Gwen Spencer. Her projects never cease to inspire me, each with a distinct sewing and personal style. You may know Gwen from our booth at the Puyallup Sewing Expo or from the Design Outside the Lines retreats where she will be a teacher.
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Travel Tunic — Vogue 9329
For me Core Travel Wardrobe Series, I'm working with Vogue 9329, AKA ‘the stop-me-in-the-street-dress’ (because people stop to ask about it). I used two co-ordinating black and white dotty prints. I chose the fabrics because they work nesting under and peeking out from the vest and the Italian poly/lycra knit has a smooth silky hand.
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How to sew a curved hem in a knit
Marcy Tilton and Gwen Spencer show how to make a quick easy clean finish on a curved hem in a knit as used in the godet detail used in tunic Vogue 9272 by Marcy Tilton.
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Two Shrugs — Vogue 9190
One knit. One knit and woven. Two completely different styles are in the pattern envelope. Both are easy to sew and fit, with a wide variety of fabric possiblities...these are essential layering piece for all seasons, and so practical to pop on over a t-shirt, tunic or dress.
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All Season Pants & Top — Butterick 6667 + 6668
Perfect for any season, these two new patterns, a shirt and pant, which pair together beautifully, are great for updating your spring-summer wardrobe and mix well in colors or neutrals.
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Easy Rider Moto Vest
Large scale prints are a fast moving trend and so are panel prints. From an Italian mill, the base fabric is a superb quality ivory stretch cotton denim with crosswise stretch which feels good and washed like a dream. The digitally printed photograph is a soft warm black and the two side by side images morph across the width with no visible line where the image joins. Dubbed 'Easy Rider', each panel is 1 1/4 yards long x 54" wide. See the scale of one panel in relation to the dress form in the photo below.
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Sewing Geek Weekend — Pattern Prototype, Jacket Design & Cozy Throw
Making a Vogue Pattern Prototype with Gwen & Marcy — When it is time to get down to business and sew the final-final prototypes for a future Vogue pattern envelope, Gwen Spencer puts a closed sign on the door of her studio and makes the 5 hour drive from Corvallis to my studio in Takilma. We had planned a weekend in December, but there was an ice storm, so pushed the date into January. The due date to Vogue is January 15, so this is cutting it close, and there are 2 patterns due; a pant and a jacket. The pant was partially done, and pretty straightforward, so this 3 day sew-a-thon was all about the jacket. These two patterns are for Winter/Holiday, a season that includes the holidays, but also casts a look toward spring, so the choice of fabrics really spans two seasons. I want to show two versions, one for holiday, another that could work for holiday in warmer climates and have a trans-seasonal more casual appeal.
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