Sewing School

The Sewing and Design School in Tacoma is a hidden gem. It attracts nationally-known instructors—Kenneth D. King will be teaching a trouser class there in March—and students of the school have gone on to careers in the fashion and fabric industries. I signed up for a two-hour class with Ryliss Bod. I would have taken an all-day class but someone else had snagged the afternoon spot.

Tacoma is about an hour south of Seattle. I am familiar with the area because DD#1 graduated from nearby Pacific Lutheran University. I left Seattle in plenty of time to get to my 9:30 am class and was greeted by Ryliss, who is a bundle of energy. After a few minutes chatting about Sew Expo, because she is familiar with the event and knows I’ll be teaching there in March, we got down to business. Ryliss handed me a length of elastic to tie around my waist and proceeded to take a comprehensive set of measurements.

The husband measured me last spring for my Sew Expo bodice sloper class. He builds houses and is used to dealing with tight tolerances, but measuring angles and edges is different than measuring squishy bodies. Ryliss confirmed a few things about my shape, such as the fact that I have longer-than-average arms. She measured twice because she thought she got it wrong the first time. I also have a long torso, and the rise on all my pants patterns will need to be adjusted as a result. It’s not my imagination.

We looked at the pants I had made and I asked her about the position of the inseam on the Linda pants. She showed me how to move it further back. I had worn the burgundy franken-raglan because I wanted her opinion on the raglan seams. I thought they needed some tweaking, so she re-pinned them and showed me what adjustments needed to be made to the pattern.

I like her approach to fitting. She says that Kenneth King prefers to teach drafting from scratch, whereas she likes to teach fitting by adjusting a commercial pattern. I have found that latter method to be easier for me, which probably has to do with the fact that I like having some kind of example in front of me as opposed to attempting to visualize an end goal in my head.

Two hours wasn’t nearly enough. I will be going back for more classes. Maybe even one with Kenneth D. King if I am lucky.

[On the way over to Seattle, I listened to the recent Bernina Sew and So podcast interview with Kenneth D. King. I’ve listened to a few other interviews with him on the Threads monthly podcast as well. He is a fascinating person.]

The school has several sewing machines and sergers, including this unicorn, a New Home combo machine:

It’s a sewing machine on the front and a serger on the back. Circa 1980s? I wish I had taken a photo of the front of the machine, too, for the model number. I can’t find it via a Google search.

After class, I headed over to Tacoma Mall for lunch at Panera and a stop at the Joann Fabrics store there. That Joanns is large and had a good selection of garment fabrics. I bought an ice blue rayon sweater knit with a cable pattern, destined for a Harper Cardigan for next spring. I also popped in to the Liz Claiborne department at JC Penney to see what the winter collection looked like.

My route back to Seattle included a stop here:

I love Pacific Fabrics. It is in an area of Seattle known as SODO—South of Downtown. It’s a short walk from the light rail station, but I’m not comfortable taking the light rail in Seattle anymore. I prefer to drive, and the store isn’t hard to get to despite being in an industrial area.

Pacific Fabrics used to have several stores in the Seattle area. I went to the one in Northgate a few years ago, close to where DD#1 and her husband lived when he was in dental school at UW, but Pacific Fabrics closed that store as well as the one in Bellevue. This is now their only location. The store is up a flight of steps into a huge room with wood floors and lots of old circular display racks holding bolts of fabric. I bought a floral rayon woven for a blouse for next spring.

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I am glad I have nothing on the calendar for this week, because re-entry after a trip takes some work. I did record a podcast episode yesterday in between laundry and cleaning and a few other tasks. I want to finish quilting that cream and white scrap quilt this month so I can move on to other projects. I also pulled out a pattern I am thinking of using for my Christmas outfit. I’ll test it with some stretch velvet from the stash.

Next week will be busy. Choir practice starts on Wednesday night. And some time before Christmas, the husband and I have to shoehorn in a trip back to Tacoma to pick up his new work truck.