Draw it out!
Ever have an idea for a design and you just wanted to sew it, but could not really get the idea out into the real world? A great way to start a sewing project is to draw or sketch it out. This allows you to have a concrete image in your mind and now on paper.
If you are not comfortable with drawing free hand then buy a paper doll that is tall and slender or look online and trace your clothes on over that figure. The figure you are using is known, in the industry, as a fashion figure or croquis. A fashion figure is a nine to ten head figure. This means that if you take the length of her head and divide her body into sections counting the head as one the figure will be able to be sectioned off into nine or ten sections.
If you would like to take this a step further and get a little “technical” you can also do flats. Flats are also used in the industry and they look just like if you were to lay a garment flat on the ground. They are very one dimensional and you want your garment to be drawn with the fabric as flat as possible. This means if you were drawing a skirt then you would lift both bottom edges till it made an arc at the hem. Flats are really for others to know the detail of your garment but, they can also help you to figure out where the buttons go or if you need to add an extra fit line anywhere.
Drawing things out really helps you to understand how you are going to construct your garment. It also helps you to understand how to make your pattern or which patterns you could manipulate to make what you want. This can be an awesome tool for a new project!
We fell in LOVE!
What an amazing week it was at The Sewing Studio last week. We fell in LOVE! 15 grade 7s and 8s from Toronto’s The York School stormed TSS last week (Monday to Friday) for our first run of our summer sewing camp: Fashion Runway Week! The girls all started out with this same (pretty boring) shirt dress, and they added to it, deconstructed it, and turned it into their own creation. What else did they do all week?
- learned to sew
- got concept-to-creation advice from fashion designer Jessica Biffi
- took a fashion illustration crash course
- chose a name for their fashion label
- got a graphic design talk from photographer and designer Anna Lisa Sang
- designed their own logos and hang tags
- learned how to style an outfit with stylist Janette Ewen
- built their own outfit around the garment they redesigned
- posed for a photo that went on their project board along with their fabric swatches, fashion illustration, hang tag, and inspirational tear sheets
We miss the girls already and we can’t wait for the summer when we’ll be running this program again! What’s more? We’ve added another camp to our fashion camp roster. Lights! Camera! Fashion! is a summer sewing camp for kids that has them turning a pair of jeans into a bag, dad’s old shirt into a dress, and finishing with makeup application by a makeup artist and then a photo shoot and a personalized take-home magazine cover! Here’s our summer camp PDF for full program details (about Lights! Camera! Fashion!, Fashion Runway Week, and also Teddy Bear Fashion Wear).TheSewingStudioCamps.pdf
Hope this encourages you to get sewing!
Denise — Founder & Managing Director
New newsletter and camps, camps, camps!
Alright, have you seen our new, outstanding newsletter???? If you’re not already subscribing, get ON IT! The emailed version is chock full of links to all our favourite things. TSS eNewsletter V3.pdf Sign up now by emailing newsletter@lovesewing.com
At The Sewing Studio this week we’re all about camps. We’re running our first session of summer’s Fashion Runway Week today until Friday with students from The York School, a private school in Toronto. In addition to learning to sew, students will turn an existing garment into their own piece of haute couture. They’ll learn fashion illustration, how to design a logo and hang tag, how to style an outfit, and all the while they’ll hear from industry pros including Jessica Biffi of Project Runway Canada, Anna Lisa Sang of Flare, Fashion, House & Home, and LouLou, and Janette Ewen of CityLine and Globe & Mail. Sounds amazing, don’t you think?
We’ll keep you posted on the camp. In the meantime, there’s still room in the summer versions of Fashion Runway Week! Register now and see full details by downloading our summer camp PDF.
In addition to Fashion Runway Week for tweens and teens, we’ve got Teddy Bear Week for young creatives ages 8-13. AND…. we’re adding a new camp to the roster: Lights! Camera! Fashion! Stay tuned for news on that. Students ages 8-14 will re-work a pair of jeans into a fashionable bag and a parent’s button-down shirt into a dress. On the last day of the camp, we’re bringing in a professional makeup artist for a photoshoot, and each student will leave with their very own personalized magazine cover!
So as you can see, we’ve got camp fever here at The Sewing Studio. Summer’s on its way……
Happy Sewing!
Denise — Founder & Managing Director
