Hoboken Guide @ Design Sponge

A fellow business owner here in town passed along a link to a Hoboken City Guide on the Design Sponge Blog. I am soooo honored to be a part of this piece, as I absolutely love Design Sponge!

"Welcome to Hoboken. A vibrant New Jersey town just a hop, skip and jump over the river from Manhattan. Hoboken was made famous as the birthplace of Frank Sinatra, the filming location of the Marlon Brando movie On The Waterfront and the music venue “Maxwell’s” where Bruce Springsteen filmed the video for “Glory Days.”

Hoboken is also the town of many firsts, including inventions like freeze-dried coffee, bubble wrap and ice cream, as well as the first organized baseball game and the first brewery. It boasts the most bars and restaurants in one square mile of its town’s boundaries, and the indie/designer/art scene is on its way up due to many artists and musicians living here. It is also home of the infamous Cake Boss from the Lifetime show."

And here is what they had to say about us, under the category Art, Craft Supplies & Galleries:

"M. Avery Designs — Also home of the Hoboken Handmade Collective. If you love fabric, this is the place to visit. They also host classes and socials and offer open studios for use of their sewing machines. All items in the store are handmade and gorgeous. 266, 7th Street (at the corner of Willow Ave.)"

Read more at Design*Sponge  

http://www.designspongeonline.com/2011/01/hoboken-city-guide.html#ixzz1AlrVWDHV

Cool illustration

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Adorable Kids Sewing Project

I am always looking for fun ways to teach kids to sew in our Fashion Lab Kids Hand Sewing & Crafting classes. Today I came across these super cute animal sewing cards on a blog written by a graphic designer in California and she made it beyond easy! She's got PDF's of all four of these adorable animal designs that you can print out onto sturdy paper and get the kids stitching lickety-split!

Guess what we'll be doing in class on Tuesday?!?

Mommy Sewing Class - Free Intro Class in January

Mommy Sewing Lab is our latest and greatest daytime sewing class for moms and anyone that wants to learn to sew baby & kid stuff. This class is for complete beginners who would like to learn the basics and/or intermediate stitchers who would like to improve their skills and meet other people with similar interests. We'll focus on learning how to make baby items, kids clothing, baby quilts and much, much, more. Bring in your ideas, and we'll make them!

Come sew in our relaxed environment, with instructors here to help you with your latest sewing project.
New moms are welcome to bring their (non-walking) infants. There is private space in the back of the studio for nursing.
 

It's an on-going class that will be happening:  

Every Wednesday 2-3:30pm

and anyone can start at any time

Here are the details:

Introductory drop-in Class is free in January 2011 - You are just responsible for supply costs (usually about $5 if you don't bring your own fabric)

Purchase a Six Class Pass for $120

Come on the days that you can make it. You have 3 months to use your classes.Please note: Card expires 3 months from purchase date.

Complete beginners will take our Basic Sewing Overview at their first class to learn to operate the sewing machines. You'll make your very first project, a nursing cover, at your first class and all supplies are included for this project. Everyone will have the chance to make bigger and better (baby & child related ) projects as they improve their skills more and more as they keep coming to class.�

Check out more details on website.

New Meetup - Fabric Flower Craft-Along

I know it's barely winter, but I am already dreaming of spring....

Let's all get together for our next Fashion Lab Meetup to make some fabric flowers. There are literlly hundreds of great tutorials out there for making adorable fabric flowers. For most of them all you need are fabric scraps & cool buttons.

Come learn how to make fabric flowers and share with fellow meetup members, your favorite techniques for crafting fabric flowers.

Bring all the fabric scraps you have laying around your house. I will provide all the tools and sewing machines (if we even need them) as well as snacks :)


Here is a great tutorial to get your inspired:

http://kindawonderful.typepad.com/pink_paper_peppermints/2008/05/31-crafty-flo-3.html

Where: M Avery Designs Studio 266 7th Street Hoboken NJ 07030
When: Saturday January 29th, 2011 2:30-4:30pm
RSVP and/or Join our Meetup Group:
http://www.meetup.com/fashionlab/calendar/15899558/?from=list&offset=0

New Sewing Classes in 2011

Happy New Year!

We are just now finishing up our poster listing all our sewing classes for young and old in Winter 2011.

Check it out:

Tips for sewing Vintage Sewing Patterns

So we just wrapped up our Fashion Lab Vintage Dresses class this past month. We had such a blast teaching it and people had such a great time making all the vintage dress, we'll be offering it again right away on Wednesday nights on September. All four of the styles of dress (no matter which era they were from) were completely fashionable in today's standards and it was so fun to see how sewing patterns have changed since way back in the day.

In the class we learn how to make four different vintage dress styles based on the actual sewing patterns from the 1950's, 1960's & 1970's. There were certain things that rang true each week, no matter what we were making.  I wanted to share with you three major tips for using vintage sewing patterns to make garments.

1. Vintage pattern pieces are VERY fragile. In order to make them a little safer to copy and cut your fabric from them, before each class I would reinforce them. Usually this meant using packaging tape to tape the actual paper patterns onto interfacing and reinforce in the spots that needed it. I suppose if you have a fancy laminating machine that would work too. But I don't have one of those, so the tape worked for me. And actually by sewing it to a light weight interfacing, it made it sturdy, but also malleable enough to make it easy to cut the smaller sizes by folding the edges under.

2. Sizing can be tough! Vintage dress patterns came in only one size and the sizing is completley different from today's sizing standards depending on when the pattern came out. I found that it was easiest to make a version of the dress we were doing that week in the size that was stated on the package and then determine (based on today's sizing standards) what size it is in today's sizing. Or if you wanted to get a bit more technical about it, determine how big the waist, hip & bust measurements are for the size of the pattern and scale out (or in for the skinny minnies) based on how much bigger you need it to be. Or as we found in the class, when in doubt, make it too big and size it down to fit your measurements by adding darts and pleats.


3. Yardage Recommendations on the package of the pattern are different for older patterns. One the envelop you will find yardage recommendations that may be confusing.  The reason is that back in day, fabric came in narrower widths then they are today. It was commonplace to find fabric widths measuring 36" & 39". Now most fabric widths are 45, 55 or 60" wide

I hope this helps! I know it helped us in the class a ton.

You'll see that most pattern companies that are still around today have re-issued patterns based on their vintage styles from years ago. This will have taken care of many of the above issues. But isn't it more fun to not be afraid to tackle the genuine vintage patterns that you find at your neighbors garage sale, or that your grandmother has had in her attic since you were a baby! Happy Sewing!