Making T-Shirts in Spokane

I taught the Lark Tee class in Spokane on Friday and Saturday. Four students had enrolled in the class, but one had to cancel at the last minute due to a death in the family.

From my standpoint, as the teacher, I thought the class went extremely well, even though only one student went home with a T-shirt that fit her right off the bat with no alterations to the pattern. That may sound like a paradox, but it’s not, really, because I tried to stress—repeatedly—that very few people can make something that fits perfectly straight out of the envelope. And I had three students with three very different body shapes. One was petite and a bit busty. The second matched the description on the envelope: “This pattern has been designed for a woman who is 5’5” tall and wears a B cup.” The third woman was about my age and height; she was in my class last August, but had lost 30 pounds in the year since. She had to adjust for wider hips.

[I’ll let you guess whose T-shirt fit the best.]

The petite student was a bit disappointed in her shirt, even though she acknowledged that she has a lot of trouble finding clothes that fit. I said that even the process of making something that doesn’t fit provides a great deal of useful information, because it points to the places that need to be addressed. Had we had more time, we probably could have made the necessary adjustments to the pattern, but she needed so many adjustments that it would have ended up being a private fitting class. She was also new to serging and needed some guidance on using her machine. She didn’t quite understand seam allowances and made hers wider than the 1/4” specified in the pattern, which contributed to her T-shirt being too small.

During Friday’s session, where we covered measuring and fitting information, I tried to drop some very broad hints about using clearance fabric or fabric from the Walmart remnant rack for making muslins. (The students would have had time between Friday and Saturday’s classes to get some, and I hoped they would.) Ironically. the woman who used clearance fabric for her first T-shirt was the one whose shirt fit her perfectly. The other two used fabric purchased at the store.

My assessment, after it was over, was that the entire class served as a textbook illustration of the issues inherent in fitting and making clothing. And I crammed a ton of information into six hours.

All three of them, as well as the store owner, asked if I would come back and teach again. They would like to have a session on making pants, so we’re going to see about scheduling a Jalie Renee pants class.

On my way over to Spokane on Thursday, I stopped at Becky’s Sewing Center in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. This is the store that is hosting the Amanda Murphy ruler class in December. I mentioned to them that I teach serger classes and left my information. I’ll follow up this week. If I am going to make the trip over to Spokane to teach, it would be lovely to schedule classes at multiple stores.

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Back in July, a group of us got together for dinner with Nicole Sauce—host of the Living Free in Tennessee podcast—when she was passing through Spokane. We said that we would like to make it a regular occurrence, so I organized a dinner Thursday evening. Nicole, of course, wasn’t there, but there were five of us for dinner including one newcomer who is in the process of moving to Idaho from Tacoma. We enjoyed a meal together and I think we will continue to try to get together periodically when I’m in Spokane.

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While I was shopping on Thursday, I stopped at Barnes And Noble and found this:

Sarah Veblen teaches online fitting classes, so I was familiar with her name. I think this will be a great resource. I’ve only given it a quick perusal, but it has a ton of great information.

This is a busy week. I have a serger class scheduled for Tuesday, although I need to check with the store to see if anyone signed up. I have a meeting on Wednesday. And the kids are coming on Friday for the long weekend.