My friends will be shocked to see that I started this blog, but I'm having so much fun in the sewing classes I'm taking that all I want to do is talk about it!

No, seriously.  Aside from being a relaxing diversion from my day job, I'm learning really cool couture techniques and it's the stuff you can only learn from a master dressmaker.  I've always sewn from patterns, but this class is like home-made look meets haute couture.  I'm learning that it's all in the care you take with fit and finish.

So, our first class: taking measurements.  And I'm not talking simple bust, waist, and hip measures plus a few others.  No.  We took 38 different measurements! – front armhole crease, upper back width, front shoulder slope, abdomen height, wrist circumference, high hip width, back low hip width – you get the picture.

During that class, I did a flashback to high school algebra with a teacher we affectionately nicknamed “Inch” – don't ask.  He loved teaching so much and was so good at it, you felt compelled to pay attention.  But after a while, I would still be thinking, “there has GOT to be an easier way.  Surely this is the learn-the-rule-before-you-break-it method of algebraic equations.”  Well, as it turns out, not so much.  Not in algebra and certainly, not in dressmaking.

Each and every measurement I took for my skirt produced my first sloper and the finest fitting skirt I've ever made!  In muslin, that is.  The true test will be cutting fabric for and sewing the real thing.  I'm sure you'll be waiting with baited breath to see how it turns out!  I'll let you know next week.

Tags: Sewing Dressmaking Couture