DC Threads

Greetings all

DC Threads is taking a summer vacation. Due to a DC Parks and Rec event being held at the North Michigan Park Rec Center on July 10th, the DC Threads Sewing Lounge will not meet.  We will return in August with needles ready to stitch!  Have a great month and see you in August!

Enjoy some photos from yesterday’s Lounge.  We made bags, learned to use new machines, laid out patterns, recycled spouse’s denim shirts, rubbed off hobo bags, and channeled our collective creative karma!  Many thanks to all the sewists who joined us and to all our AMAZING coaches!

Welcome summer!

This month we are re-introducing the Sewing Lounge’s  “Project of the Month”.  Each month we will offer up a suggested project that Lounge participants can make or that you can make at home if you can’t attend the Lounge.  This month we will be sewing an EMPIRE WAIST TUBE TOP – a  cool summer top that is soooooo chic and easy to make!  Click on the image below for the instructions and required fabric and notions:

Sew on!

The DC Threads Sewing Lounge continues to be wildly popular – with spaces filling up within hours of availability and long waiting lists!  In an effort to to accommodate everyone interested in learning to sew, we are working to find the time and space to host additional sessions of the Lounge.  Squeezing more hours into the day is always tough – but we thought we would reach out to our sewing community to inquire if any sewists out there know of a space, in DC, (specifically – a free space) that would be suitable to host a Lounge once or twice a month.  Drop us an email at DCThreads@gmail.com if you have an ideas for us.

Thanks again for your support of DC Threads!

Best,

Laura and Allison

Interested in learning about couture sewing techniques?  The American Sewing Guild – Maryland Chapter is hosting a full day workshop with Susan Khalje – couture dressmaker and master teacher.  Susan will demonstrate  a range of basic hand-sewing stitches, a hand-picked zipper, ultra-thin spaghetti straps, a beautifully controlled narrow machine hem, perfect angled seams, covered snaps that are attached with a buttonhole stitch, thread chains and thread bars, seaming lace invisibly and faggoting.

Susan received her professional sewing training at the New York couture salon, Chez Cez et Bez and later worked as a fashion designer and manufacturing supervisor on 7th Avenue in New York.  She is a contributing editor of Threads magazine and was recently awarded the Association of Sewing and Design Professionals Lifetime Achievement Award.

I have attended several of Susan’s classes and she is extraordinarily skilled in the techniques of couture and is a terrific teacher.

Saturday, May 22, 2010      Time: 9am – 5pm

Marriott BWI Airport Hotel (410) 859-8300

1743 West Nursery Road

Linthicum Heights, MD  21090

Full Day Workshop –             $100 (ASG Members)     $140 (Non ASG Members)

Registration Deadline: May 8, 2010

NO TICKETS WILL BE SOLD AT THE DOOR

Questions, please contact Blondell Howard at  sew.sassy@verizon.net

or Ivalyn “Tee” Jones-Actie at   dressed2atee@yahoo.com

To register please mail your check (made out to MD AMerican Sewing Guild) to:

Blondell Howard

c/o The Sassy SEWer

9008 Harford Road

Baltimore, MD 21234

Please include your name, address and email address with your payment.

Community of Hope ROCKS!!!

Many thanks to the Community of Hope for accepting the American Sewing Guild – Maryland Chapter’s offering of 200 hand crafted pillow cases for their residents! We hope that they will brighten up your residents’ spaces.  Thanks again to Community of Hope for all the good work that you do for our community!

The Textile Museum has graciously offered to host, for DC Threads, a private tour of two extraordinary exhibitions: Contemporary Japanese Fashion: The Mary Baskett Collection and the Fabrics of Feathers and Steel: The Innovation of Nuno.   The Contemporary Japanese Fashion exhibit includes avant-garde garments from the collection of Mary Baskett, an art dealer and former curator of prints at the Cincinnati Art Museum who has been collecting and wearing Japanese high fashion since the 1960s.  The Nuno exhibition  features 18 examples from the Nuno studio, dating from the time of the company’s founding in 1984 to the present day. Nuno (meaning “functional fabric” in Japanese) integrates the techniques, materials and aesthetics of traditional Japanese textiles with cutting-edge technologies in order to create some of the world’s most innovative and influential fabrics.

When? Saturday April 3rd from 11:00am -12:00nn

Where? Textile Museum 2320 S Street, NW  Washington, DC 20008-4088  Phone: (202) 667-0441

How Much? a $5 donation to the Textile Museum

How Do I Snag a Spot? We need to limit registration to 20 enthusiasts -  so register SOON for this event at our registration page here.

Don’t miss this fashion and design event!  Fashion Fights Poverty has partnered with Woodrow Wilson High School to fund its Clothing and Textile Program (CTP), a program that began in the 1930s as part of the Home Economic and Arts curriculum. The program has evolved over the years and typically includes up to 225 students, 75% of the school’s total enrollment. Providing $5,000 worth of school supplies, materials (including fabric, notions, scissors, among other materials), and curriculum support (including dress forms and other props); FFP is committed to the education and development of Washington, D.C.’s future design leaders and fashion experts.

Thursday, February 25, 7 to 10 PM

L2 Lounge, 3315 Cady’s Alley NW (between 33 & 34 off M)

Washington, DC

Suggested donation $5

Come on out and represent DC Threads at this event!

Hand-sewn snowflake cards, a great indoor activity idea from goldtop.org

Alas, for the first time since this program was launched in 2008, the DC Threads Sewing Lounge will be canceled this Saturday (February 13, 2010). We tried to hold out, but North Michigan Park Center is still working on plowing its sidewalks and parking lot, and many of our wonderful volunteer sewing coaches will not be able to make it safely tomorrow.  Our sincere apologies to those who were registered this weekend, but hopefully we’ll be able to see you at another lounge session this Spring.

We will be back and bustling on March 13, 2010!

Stay cozy and keep sewing!

Allison and Laura

Welcome 2010!  All of us here at DC Threads are looking forward to another wildly successful  year – thanks to  the incredibly talented and creative sewists and volunteers who join us each month at the Sewing Lounge!!  Our vision for 2010 includes building on the success of the Lounge, focusing on our “Stitchin’ for Change” community service program, and expanding the Sewing Lounge to at least one other site in the city – stay tuned for details!!!

As the temperatures dip – what better time to stitch up some warm and cozy hats and scarves to keep the chill at bay???  At our January DC Threads Sewing Lounge we will have patterns, equipment,  and loads of expertise available to you to make some warm, toasty and trendy accessories to keep you warm!

A sampling of patterns for the hats and scarves can be found in the Patterns section of this site (http://www.dcthreads.org/patternsmain/clothing/).  As always, please try to bring the appropriate yardage of fleece that you will need for the project you have chosen as we have a limited amount of fleece in our fabric stash!   Both G-Street Fabrics and Joann Fabrics have great selections of solid and printed polar fleece.

A few tips for lounge-goers: as we’ve been growing, we’ve been lucky to receive many new donations of fabric, notions, and sewing machines. However, we still have limited supplies and equipment (especially sewing machines), so if you plan to come to the lounge and have your own machine, we strongly recommend that you bring it so that you do not have to wait for a machine to become available. And if you are new to sewing and want to be sure you get the most out of the lounge session, we also recommend that you arrive as close to 1pm as possible so that you have plenty of time to learn the basics and start on your first project.

As always, if you are interested in volunteering we welcome you to join us!

Hope to see you on Saturday to ring in the new year!

Best,

Allison and Laura

Once again we are pleased to share some upcoming DC-based fashion events with our DC Threads family.

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The Textile Museum has two “must see” events on their calendar.  First up is (drum-roll please) an evening with ISABEL TOLEDO – designer of Mrs. O’s fabulous lemongrass dress and coat!!!

From Switzerland to the White House:  The Story Behind the Inauguration Dress

Thursday, November 5, 5:30 Pm

Isabel Toledo’s Lemongrass Coat and Dress dazzled the world when it was worn by First Lady Michelle Obama on Inauguration Day. Join us at The Textile Museum for this special evening program and hear firsthand about the process behind its creation—from the fabric, made by the Swiss company Forster Rohner, to the finished product.

Panelists include American fashion designer Isabel Toledo, her creative partner and husband Ruben Toledo, and Hans Schreiber, creative director of Forster Rohner, moderated by Robin Givhan, The Washington Post’s fashion editor and winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. The talks will be followed by a reception featuring Swiss wine and chocolate. This program is co-sponsored by the Embassy of Switzerland.

Fee: $25/Textile Museum members; $45/non-members. Advance registration is required; space is limited. Call (202) 667-0441, ext. 64 to register.

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And it seems the Textile Museum is on a fashion roll – a new genre for them!   Don’t miss the extraordinary collection of Mary Baskett’s Japanese garments.

Contemporary Japanese Fashion: The Mary Baskett Collection

October 17, 2009 – April 11, 2010

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Japanese designers Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto shocked the fashion world by introducing avant-garde styles that challenged received Western notions of “chic.” Informed in part by Japanese traditions such as the kimono, obi and the art of origami, these designers produced radical garments with shapes and textures often incongruous with the natural contours of the human body. Their designs—characterized by asymmetry, raw edges, unconventional construction, oversized proportions and monochromatic palettes—effectively overthrew existing norms and set the stage for the postmodernist movement in the fashion industry. Miyake, Yamamoto, and Kawakubo remain three of the most successful designers in today’s fashion world, and under their tutelage a new generation of Japanese talent has emerged.

This exhibition, an expanded version of an earlier showing at the Cincinnati Art Museum, includes avant-garde garments from the collection of Mary Baskett, an art dealer and former curator of prints at the Cincinnati Art Museum who has been collecting and wearing Japanese high fashion since the 1960s.

And before you set out for S Street to view the collection please please take a few minutes to read Robin Givhan’s review of the collection and her views on the designers – her insight definitely will make your time with the garments more meaningful!

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And as previously posted, Christian Siriano will be speaking about and signing his new book, “Fierce Style” at the Corcoran Gallery of Art on November 3^rd.

Oh yes!   November is lookin’ mighty fine here in DC!