What have I been up to since I last checked in?…
alterations, restorations, refashions, reproductions, oh my…
I’ve been doing a ton of work for a massage therapist.  She asked me to copy a pair of pants and make a pattern.  Since then she has had me make 8 pairs of pants.  We are working on her favorite shirt now. I am not so scared of pattern making now (or my serger).

In July, I found Fabric Mecca.  It’s in Dallas.  Two words, Perth Street.  I found $6/yd linen.

I altered my best friends wedding dress. She had me dream up how to bustle it up.
In my recent webcrawlings I came accross this tutorial on how to hem jeans.  Dig in.

If you want to see what I have been up to you can check out my flicker page.

So I went into Octane with Em the other day. My jeans look just as good as their jeans do. Em suggested that I skinny the jeans up a bit and leave them long. I have also been experimenting with chunky topstitching.

Making skinny jeans was easier than I thought.  I did all of the alterations on the outer leg seam.  I found the point on the thigh where the jeans couldn’t be taken in and measured how wide I wanted the rest of the leg.  I used an existing pair of jeans as a template but this could easily be accomplished with a hip curve.

It’s been a while since I checked in.  What exactly have I been doing?

• I have been working on changing my Level IV class syllabus up.  The next session will be a 2 Saturday class rather than 4 3-hour classes.  It’s a little rough but I think that it can be done.  It will require a lot of focus but I have faith.
• I was also busy with SXSW.  I found a little bit of time to sew but not much.  My skinny jeans are done (I will put up some photos later in the week).   I have 2 pairs of pants to finish.
• I did some sketching.  Something very rare.  I figured that I should practice in case I do end up auditioning for Project Runway.
• I did a lot of research this week while I was people watching at SXSW.  So many ill-fitting pants (muffin top strikes again).   I am getting tired of the shrug-ish longsleeve jackets over the long shirts.  They do nothing for me.  There were many more fashion faux pas but I chose not to photograph them.  I am trying to purge them from my memory.
• I did some networking.  I may have a few more people to sew for. Hopefully they are as low maintenance as my existing clients.

I promise to upload some more pictures soon.

-j