Return to the Scene of the Crime - Farewell meetup for Amy

Is it possible to run out of things to talk about when a bunch of enthusiastic seamsters get together? Purely a rhetorical question because I can tell you the answer is never. This post's title refers to our meetup last year at the same wine bar. The evening was arranged by the wonderful Amy (you know her from her SewWell blog as well as the Mood Sewing Network). We first met just about a year ago when I had Karen who writes the Did you make that? blog as my sewing student for a week here in California. One of the highlights of that week was a meetup that Karen and I arranged at a wine bar in San Francisco, here is a link to Amy's post summarizing that fun night.
More get togethers followed but this was Amy's last meetup as a California resident. Career developments beckon so she and her husband are relocating to Seattle.  She arranged for all of us to meet at Britex after hours and we had a champagne toast to wish her well. Do you recognize that famous staircase leading to all kinds of lovely fabrics and extra special goodies on the upper floors?

It was great to see all these friends and meet some sewists who I have only seen on their blogs. Starting at the bottom of the photo is me, then to my left is Jilly of JillyBeJoyful and next to her  in the white/black coat is Jean of JKaori Sews. Behind in the lime green sweater is Kelly of Bennomusik, a new addition to our group, yeah! Next in the red jacket is Shams of Communing with Fabric. Going up the staircase on the next row are Rebecca (another new face!), Vanessa and then in the turquoise top is Elizabeth of e-bethknits. Right behind her is Laura Mae of Lilacs and Lace and yes, she was wearing one of her fantastic vintage style outfits. To her right in the gingham shirt is Erin of SeamstressErin. With the red scarf is Geanna of Britex, just behind her is Veronique of verte-adelie and then at the top of the staircase in the white sweater is Amy of SewWell and our leader for the evening.

After our champagne toast we walked over to the wine bar around the corner and settled in for some serious sewing chat. It does amaze me that we can go for four hours talking patterns, fabric, blogs, successes, frustrations, sewing books, photography and of course the Great British Sewing Bee.

Sometimes I laugh at myself because I make all kinds of outfits but once the garment is completed and the photo is taken I don't stop to do any more photography - in the wild, so to speak. To prove that I do wear these things I give you a look, at the best photo location for sewing fanatics in San Francisco. Just one door down from Britex, so if you are in the vicinity be sure to wear your me-mades and take the requisite theme photo!  Wearing the world's greatest skirt pattern V1247, blogged here, and the jacket is S2455, blogged here.  The top I am not yet sure about, it is a red rayon jersey cowl neck, NL6901 made with long sleeves, photo at the end of this post. 

I took one very crummy Iphone pic at the end of the evening but I just saw a post by Jilly  with more photos so jump over there to see more about this evening.

I am sorry to see Amy leave the bay area but will look forward to keeping up with her on line. We had a great evening and I think a summer get-together is in the works for this group. If you are traveling to San Francisco and want to meet some fellow sewing fanatics let me know, as we are always ready to arrange a meetup.

Here is the top and the pattern photo for the New Look cowl top. Another blogger connection as I received this pattern in a giveaway and now I can't remember who sent it to me. too many patterns...

                                        

By the way, Karen (Did you make that? mentioned above) is now a Fashion Blogger with the UK newspaper, the Guardian.  I am so proud !  Ok, nothing to do with me but it is fun to say it. Hey - come to think of it, maybe you should get in touch for some private sewing tutoring with me,  who knows where you will end up?

Happy sewing and I look forward to our next meetup
Beth

School's out

For this session, at least. Last week was a fun and exhausting week as I gave a week-long personalized sewing class to Karen from London. Yes, London, as in jolly old England. One morning in April I opened my e-mail to her very interesting query.  I had read her very popular blog, Did you make that? a few times, but it took me a minute to put the name with the blog. 


She had booked a one week couture sewing class in San Francisco, bought her air tickets, paid for the hotel and then received notice that the class was cancelled due to unforseen circumstances.  Her plans were to do the class and then rendevouz at the end of the week with her boyfriend to travel around California and beyond.  I know Karen will be doing posts when she returns home so I will not make a long story longer, but due to the magic of the internet she found me and my blog.  After a few e-mails back and forth, I said yes and we started talking about her project, what she wanted to learn and all the logistics.  


Everything worked out fantastically, we even started planning a sewing meetup for one evening that week and I waited to meet her. (Plus cleaned and reorganized my sewing space - what a good motivation.)  And worried a tiny bit about the whole thing.  What if we didn't click? had a personality clash? she didn't like my teaching style? I can laugh now but I did think about those things.  

Beth and Karen

True confession - so did she.  We had a good laugh when we both revealed that we had that little doubt in the back of our minds.  Not to worry - we had SO MUCH FUN!

Photo above, a moment of relaxation in my backyard after lunch.  Karen is smiling but perhaps she is thinking I am a tough taskmaster. I so wanted her to finish her project, and she got through most of as she put it "the difficult bits".

I won't post much on her project (I didn't really take any photos, too busy powering through all the steps) but here is a tiny sneak peek including her beautifully completed bound buttonholes, basted closed after you finish them, so they maintain their shape until the garment is finished.  You know I must have liked her :) since I let her use my lovely vintage Belding Corticelli silk thread in a nicely contrasting orange . . . note to self, I need to haunt yard sales this summer and find more of those spools, a shame it is no longer made.

What did we cover in her week long session?  Here are a few things:

• Pattern fitting, in particular vintage patterns with those crazy darts
• Timesaving methods for pinning and cutting out
• Marking, both carbon tracing and thread tailor's tacks
• Silk organza underlining
• Darts - sewing and pressing
• Fusible interfacing - a lifesaver
• hand stitches - how and where to use
• Bound buttonholes
• Trimming seam allowances
• Collar and Lapels

Oh, yeah, we needed a beer on Friday night when we got through all that and more.

Here is Karen in the home stretch, doing some marking for her bound buttonholes:

On Wednesday of this marathon sewing week we met up with lots of other bay area  sewists at a wine bar in downtown San Francisco.  This image is from Amy's blog, Sew Well. It was great to meet Amy and she said the sweetest things! That is me at the back near the wine bottles, wearing a new Vogue DK pattern, which I will post soon.  Several who attended have posted about the evening, including Shams, Communing with Fabric, who I met last year when we arranged a meetup at the Balenciaga exhibit. (note to Bay area readers - Gaultier exhibit meetup getting organized now)

Karen also wrote a great post about the meetup and her general instruction to all potential visitors to SF (her advice, in all caps - DO IT!)

Christine of What's Up Cupcake also wrote and has some super photos. 

I know I am missing a few links to others who wrote about the evening but the consensus was:  FUN, and when are we doing it again?  

Back to sewing, Thursday and Friday Karen and I really motored through her "difficult bits" and she got a lot accomplished. I can't wait to see her finished outfit and I am so happy that she contacted me to get this whole adventure started.  The weather cooperated here in N. California, the garden was blooming and we could sit outside for our lunch breaks to chat about non-sewing topics.  Did we run out of conversation? Not likely.  She answered all my questions about British phrases that I hear due to my excessive PBS viewing, and shared with me that the movie "Pretty in Pink" made her dream of life as an American teenager.

Karen brought me two adorable gifts, a Queen's Diamond Jubilee Tea towel, hilarious, and this super cute Liberty of London pincushion. See the red pins, those came with Karen when she brought her muslin, and now they are mingled with my white and yellow pins.  So I will think of her sewing away in London when I reach for a red pin. 

One last photo of my new and forever sewing pal Karen, which I took just before she left.  She is holding the first fragrant gardenia of the season and wearing her very sharp Burda blouse.  Now she is off to enjoy some non-sewing vacation fun.  


Happy Travels !

Blogger meetup at the Balenciaga Exhibit

On Saturday I met with fellow sewing bloggers at the De Young Museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park to view the exhibit Balenciaga and Spain and then have some lunch and great conversation about sewing, style and fabric obsessions.  
It was so much fun to meet everyone, some were known to me through their blogs which I have been admiring for a while.  Here is our group outside the museum in the courtyard.

From left to right,  Jean of j.kaoridesigns, me, Jennifer , Shams of communingwithfabric, Sydney, Rose, JillyB, and Natasha.  For those who are not writing blogs - we urged them to give it a try or at least send us a link to a flickr group so we can see more of their fantastic creations.

The exhibit was inspiring on so many levels.  I was dazzled by the construction techniques and spent a long time trying to figure out how the Balenciaga achieved the shapes  he did with fabric.   The quality of the fabrics was incredible, and considering some of the clothes were more than 60 years old, totally wearable today.  

My fellow sewers have some great photos on their blogs of the actual exhibit, here on Shams' blog, and on JillyBeJoyful Jilly has some great photos of some of the more avant-garde pieces which were interesting to see in 360 degree version at the museum.

At lunch we had a great conversation covering fabric, patterns, designers, aquisition and storage, and we hardly touched on sewing machines.  Topic for another day!

When we first met in the lobby of the museum, someone commented that they thought I was from southern California, perhaps because of my obsession with sunshine and all things summery.  

In any case - I am a San Francisco/Northern California kind of girl.   So today's SunnyGal garden photo is celebrating our Mediterranean climate here.  Photos taken at my parent's home which is nearby - no spot for an olive tree here and their olive trees are around 50 years old but still producing.  I was photographing the pear blossoms shown on the left and not until I downloaded the photos did I see the olives in the background, I like the silvery leaves in the sunshine.  Looks like we will have plenty of pears this year, and nobody really likes pears in the family - so anyone who notices gets pears later in the year :)