Sewing With Nancy

People who don't sew or quilt may think of this as a solitary event. Not so much. Think about a quilting bee a sewing organization, a guild. And now we're at the biggest community of sewing and quilting at the Sewing and Stitchery Expo just south or in the area of Seattle, Tacoma, Washington. It's the Sewing and Stitchery Expo. There are nearly 27,000 people here during the four-day event. It brings together pattern designers fabric designers people who take classes people who teach classes. That's what we're going to do on this Sewing With Nancy program "Stitching Together a Sewing Community." Next on Sewing with Nancy. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman is made possible by Baby Lock, a complete line of sewing, quilting and embroidery machines and sergers. Baby Lock, for the love of sewing. Madeira, specializing in embroidery, quilting and special-effect threads because creativity is never black and white. Koala Studios fine sewing furniture custom-built in America. Clover, making a difference in sewing, quilting, crafting, and needle arts for over 30 years. Amazing Designs and Klass needles. An integral part of stitching together a sewing community is the pattern designer. Without the pattern, we can't do the sewing. With me is renowned pattern designer, Pati Palmer. Welcome to Sewing With Nancy once again. Thank you, but I think I know who's really renowned here. Not really. But I feel good that you think so. Thank you. That's right. Now Pati, you have been designing patterns a long time. I've made them, I know our viewers have. Share with us how long you've been doing it. Well, that's fine. I started with Vogue and between Vogue and McCall's it's been 38 years. And I'm only 39. That's right, well, good job. The important part that we want to share with our viewers is that you come to the pattern designing part because of fit. You know fit, you know sewing. Share how you go with the process of presenting a pattern to the company. Okay, and I have to say too that I didn't start out knowing how to fit. That came from teaching and a lot of experience. Sure. But that's how you do a pattern well, I think. Just like you do, you're teaching and you're working with consumers. But one fun thing that happened to me recently is a lady from Idaho sent a picture. She said, I want this 1947 dress. I'm looking at it thinking, well, it's not hour-glass and I usually do hour-glass. And you can probably see why. It ended up, I showed it to McCall's and it ended up being a pattern. I thought, well, you know, if you're hour-glass you still have fit issues. You may have a full bust and you really need to make sure this fits. It's very fitted. I thought, this might attract a younger audience too. Then you don't necessarily-- You don't design or grade the pattern. No. But you write the instructions, and that's important. Yes. I started out asking to write instructions because I wanted to put tips in it. And then we eventually added fit to the patterns as well. So there's fit instruction in the guide sheets and also the tissue has alteration lines printed on it. So it's package. From a sewer's perspective you've incorporated that into the design. Exactly. You gave the ideas then show how it comes back to you because I think that's interesting. Well, another idea that I had because of teaching fit we train teachers all over the world to teach fit. They need tools. McCall's has been great working with us on the tools. This is just a simple little blouse with a beautiful wing collar, just a cut-on collar so it's easy, and it has darts. If you're going to learn to fit a full bust that's easier than princess. So I said, well, this is what I would like and it would be a good thing to build a teaching class on. This ended up being the pattern. I think you have the blouse right there. Yes. This is the teaching pattern. The darts can be left out if they don't need darts. They can be made thinner if they want essence of dart because they don't have a waist. Sure. When Pati presents an idea to McCall's or to a pattern design company it's just some sketches. Yeah, hand sketches. And it's okay, you don't have to be an artist. No, you don't. With ideas and tips-- I have done this myself with pattern companies and I do the same way. It's good to see that you do it the same way I did it. But it gets prettier. Yes, and then it goes through stages. It doesn't just happen overnight. Then they come back with color combinations to use, style. And they'll send me a muslin and all the pattern pieces. From that I will write the actual instructions for the guide sheet. Then I send those in, which are very rough. Then what they do is make the art prettier and then I can have a chance to edit the guide sheet. It's multi-phased. It is for the consumer, the person that's going to sew. One of the great things about an event like this is that we get feedback. We do, we do. And people tell us, you know, could I have this? I don't understand that. How do feel about that? I love it when they come and say, would you do this? I would like-- In fact, I was trying to think of something that happened at this show. Somebody said, I want a raglan sleeve blouse pattern. I said, well, let's ponder that one. Because, you know, we do. It soaks in and you think about it. Sure. So with a community of sewing at an event like this we bring everyone together. That's the beauty of attending a show.

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-- so we can put fit into our patterns. None of us could sew or quilt if we didn't have fabric. Fabric designers are a big part of the sewing community. With me today is Tula Pink author of two great books and also many fabric lines. Welcome back to Sewing With Nancy, Tula. Thank you! I love to be here, any time. Now Tula, I know you first and foremost as a fabric designer. Tell our viewers how long you've been designing fabric. I've been designing fabrics for about six years now. It really came out of my love of drawing. I'm an epic doodler. So it was easy to go from that to fabric. And you doodle on paper as well as on the computer? I do, I do. All of my fabrics are drawn first primarily just straight pencil and paper the way it's always been done. I learned how to design fabric essentially from historical books on fabric design. So I very much do it in a traditional way. I work out all the repeats on paper. Then I take that into a digital format to make it ready for production. Many of your prints are very detailed, ornate. To figure out the repeats-- Now explain that to our viewers because that is a part-- I designed fabric once or twice. I didn't do a very good job of it to get the repeats, so it wasn't off. Well, really, if you look at first fabric line the repeats were very much sort of stamp and move, stamp and move. Then over the years I've gotten better and more intricate. To merge things together. Yeah, and it's really essentially just like making tessellations like we learned in elementary school. I basically just applied the same philosophy of tessellations into making repeats. That's fascinating. Let's look at one of your new lines. This has many coordinates. Yes. And several color waves as well. Yeah, yeah. Do you try to work with a certain number of coordinates? I do, I try to-- I'm a quilter at heart. That's where my love is, that's where passion is. So I want to make sure that for my own projects when I design a fabric line, that's the fabric I'm working with for the next six months. Sure. So I want to make sure I have everything I need from a big bold print to smaller prints, to maybe some more you know, background prints that have a little bit of interest. You know, I want to make sure I have something that would make a great binding. I'm always looking for that special fabric that can be versatile but is also really fun just on the bolt. Where do you get all your inspirations? I had a really great teacher when I was in college who said, the first thing you have to do is get over the fear of ideas. Once you're not afraid to come up with ideas then ideas don't control you anymore. Oh! that's good advice. Brilliant, right? Yes. So that always stuck with me. Before I land on my good idea I'll go through 50 really terrible ideas. I can relate to that. The dart sticks to the board one in ten for me. Right, yeah. I mean, I think that's everybody. Once I give myself permission to have a bad idea is when the good ideas come. I think we should do that for quilters and sewers alike ourselves permission to-- Make a mistake, to mess up to not be perfect all the time. I try to apply that to everything. Once you give yourself the freedom to fail you do it far less, actually. What good advice. Yeah, yeah. Well, Tula, I'm inspired by the way you work. Thank you. And you have a great term, naturally organic. Yes. Is that correct? Did I quote you correctly? Yeah, I use that a lot. I like to try and keep things as organic as possible. It's along the same lines as permission to fail. You also have to let yourself move and work in the way that you move and work. I really admire people who work in a different way but I know what I do and I know how I move and how that works, and that applies to everything from drawing to sewing. Tula, it's always a treat to see you. I get inspired by your work. Thank you, likewise. We'll look forward to having you again on Sewing With Nancy. Absolutely. And Tula is just one of the many fabric designers that are around the country. Now you know a little bit behind the scenes.

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In the community of sewing there are the pattern manufacturers. With me is Kathy Marrone who is the editor of Vogue Patterns magazine. Kathy, this is your first time at the Sewing and Stitchery Expo. It's my first time here as an exhibitor. I've been here many times before. That's right. But it is our first time here and it's been wonderful meeting all the people that are here. What's the reason for exhibiting? Well, people may think we came to sell patterns but we really didn't. We actually came here to talk to the consumer. Our management felt that there's no better way to find out how to improve our product than to talk directly to the people who are buying it. What a community thing, to build a relationship. We've been actually doing a little survey in our booth. I've been asking people to take a survey nine short questions about their sewing habits how they learned. And the big question is, if you ran the pattern company what would you change about the pattern company? So it's been really fun to hear what people have to say. What's the most interesting comment you've received back that you're going to take home with you? Well, the big thing is fit. People are always very interested in fit. We discovered that there's kind of two groups of people. The older sewer who's been sewing for a number of years and was taught by their mother they don't have a problem with our fit because they learned and then know how to do it. Like measuring. Right, measuring. The younger sewer isn't as familiar and they're used to ready-to-wear sizing. So they'll say, oh, I wear a size ten so I must take a size ten pattern. We all know that's not true. Sure. So they have to measure and be re-educated. But it's good to know that because then we know how to address those problems. A perfect give and take situation. Absolutely. Do you get a little shot of adrenaline when you're here? Oh, it's been wonderful just talking to people all the time. We've made so many friends here. That's a community. Really it is, it's a very big community. A woman came to us yesterday. She came in and we were all talking to different people and she said, I didn't realize how tight-knit and actually, even though it's big community it's a small, family community of sewing. Isn't that warm? It's been wonderful. All the people have been coming in and just shopping around and asking questions about the different patterns. We have lots of garments here we're showing. It's just been great. Well, Kathy thanks for enlightening us and sharing with us from a manufacturer's point of view. Thank you. And that's another part of the community of sewing. An important part about the stitching community are the teachers of sewing and quilting. With us today is Candice Jewett from Puyallup, Washington. Welcome to Sewing With Nancy. Thank you very much. I appreciate you having me here. You've been teaching for a while. Since the late '80s. I'm not sure I want to add up how many years that is. That's okay, we don't have to do that. Okay, good. Tell our viewers why you teach. You could have another job but you're a teacher of sewing and quilting. Number one, I love the people and I love sharing my passion with sewing particularly now with sergers. I've seen a move toward people who want to learn more about sergers. They know they do more than just overlock edges but they don't quite know how to go about that. That's my passion and my goal to help them learn all the other things they do. When we were talking earlier you mentioned that you're goal is to get them to say a couple of words about the serger. Yes, I'd like to hear them say fun and serger in the same sentence. I'm sure they do after taking your classes, Candice. Most of them do, yes. When you teach serging you show that it's just not for finishing edges. There's a project behind us. That's one of the classes that you teach a great roll-up placemat. Yes. A lot of people just finish edges like this napkin. Yes, on the napkin the three thread rolled edge is classic. It works really well, but sergers do so much more. We've used the chain stitch option to do a deco-chain quilting. A lot of people don't know that you can do that. We've also used fusible thread in the lower looper so that we've got an easy way to put the binding on. Binding, fusible thread, great projects combined. And then the roll-up part is just functional because of the ties. Yes, the ties were done with the belt loop binder foot. It's got the cover stitch on it so the fabric is rolled over, top stitched and over locked on the raw edge at the same time allowing that placemat to be rolled up tied and tucked into a picnic basket or on your buffet table. A lot of people say to me, especially as this show that they have enjoyed recent programs we've had on serging. The next step is to take a class to really learn how to use whatever serger you have to its potential. Absolutely. Most people will when they take their classes as to how to use their serger the little squares that we all do are great but you don't retain that the way you do if you do an absolute project start to finish in the class. Part of the sewing community you even teach young kids working with sergers. They're fearless, I'm sure. Oh, they are, absolutely. Let's take a look. One of these is a little bag a design that I use a lot when I'm traveling. But we've actually put the zipper in with the serger. It gives a clean finish on your edges. No more snagging threads in the zipper. It's easier, actually, to put in. As you know, there are so many new zippers out with neon coils, rhinestones-- This is a perfect application for that. They can put their iPads or eReaders in the back. It works really well. It's quick project, you get great satisfaction because you've made something start to finish. It's all because of a teacher. Thank you. Candice, I want to thank you for being our guest on Sewing With Nancy and for working with the whole community of sewing and quilting by being a teacher. Keep up the great work. Thank you so much.

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I am Stacy Halverson. This is our friend Tina Torrey my mother, Kathy Ackley my daughter, Brittany Revel and my aunt, Debbie Wilson. Oh, it started at the Tacoma Dome. It was cold, it was very small. When you wanted to take a class you just got in line. They handed you a ticket and got in. You went in and sat down and took the ticket. There were very few vendors. That was the first time we met Nancy. It was in 1986 at our first expo. We bought some stuff bought a book and had her sign it. We've seen her every year that she's been here since then. I started coming in 1998 when I met Debbie. She started bringing me here. I started coming in 2003. And I started in 2005. We don't let children come until they're old enough to behave themselves. We started making the vests as a symbol of how many years we have been coming. Every year we add the year we're going to be here to the vest. Tina and Debbie have their RVs and I have a little travel trailer that I park next to them. We stay in the RV lots behind the fair grounds. Yesterday was our red shirt day. We wore our jackets that we made. My daughter and I took all three of our classes that we wanted to do yesterday and then did a little bit of shopping. I had two classes yesterday then I have one class today and one class tomorrow. And my classes were all today. And my classes-- I took two yesterday I've got two today. I took tomorrow off just to spend money. Yeah, Saturday's usually our shopping day. Then Sunday we do a little bit of shopping for our next year's project that we all agree on. Then we come back and we pack up and we head home. If people have classes then we'll just do whatever we want and then after everyone's done with classes we'll meet up, we'll do lunch here. Then we'll go off and do our shopping again. We started out with walkie-talkies to keep track of each other. Now everybody has cell phones so we call, usually text, and say, where are you? Where are you? Let's meet. The problem with our group is when somebody gets something everybody else has to get it. It's kind of like the build is-- You get this, the other person gets this so you gotta get that, but then they get something else. It's kind of a fun little-- Rivalry. Rivalry. There's also a rivalry on who got it the cheapest.

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Yeah. As you know, throughout this TV show we've been at the Sewing and Stitching Expo but it just doesn't happen by chance. I'd like to introduce you to the director and founder of the expo, Joanne Ross. Hi, Nancy. Joanne, good to interview on Sewing with Nancy. Well, I'm glad that you came to the expo and that you're doing the show here. We're just really excited about it. Congratulations on 30 years of putting on this event. Thank you very much. I know a big team puts it together but you had the vision to do that. Well, a lot of years ago when I was a lot younger we did have a vision, and mainly it came from the point of education. That's our main goal. When I was working for the university I wanted to do something that would bring education for women here in the sewing industry. And you've done that and it's exciting. The feeling around me is contagious. I want to sew. Well, good.

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What has been the greatest takeaway that you've had or that you've appreciated or excited you about putting on this event? I think the fact that so many women have come here and they feel this sisterhood in the world of sewing. The other part of it, of course as I mentioned before, is education. I think that without that this show would not be what it is today. About how many educational venues do you have? We have approximately 88 seminars every day. Everyday. And we have another seven or eight events going on from style shows to special events. So, yeah, a lot of teachers, a lot of good education. Once people know How to sew or quilt then they just teach others as we found out. Yeah, they do. It expands. In fact, we started this show with a group of volunteers. We had over 200 volunteers in the beginning. And they're called-- They're called clothing and textile advisors. Yes. And they were really the ones that got me started to do this. They came to me and said, why can't we have the experts in the industry come to Puyallup. I said, we can but we have to find out a way to pay for it. Sure. And we invented the show. The volunteers then, in the off season when the show is not on are out teaching others to sew especially kids. What a wonderful way to expand the community, the community of sewing. So another 30 years? Well, I don't know if it will be another 30 years but it may be. I don't know that I'll be involved in that. And I'm not going to either 30 years from now but we hope that the community of sewing expands and grows. Well, Joanne, this has been delightful. It's been great to be here and to be educated, because I take classes too and to teach which I have done the last two days. And to have you as part of Sewing With Nancy. Nancy, we're very glad that you're here. Over the years it's been a good relationship. I'm very proud of it. Thanks so much for being our guest. Thank you for being part of this Sewing With Nancy on the road "Stitching a Sewing Community" together. Remember that you can see all things Sewing With Nancy at nancyzieman.com. You can re-watch my program or any of the 70-plus shows that are on-line. You can tune into my blog or follow me on the social media areas. And as I close every program of Sewing With Nancy I say, thanks for joining me. Bye for now. Nancy's autobiography, "Seams Unlikely" includes behind the scenes insights to Sewing With Nancy plus details of the challenges she's faced in life. TV's most recognized sewing teacher gives encouragement to pursue your dreams. The autographed book is $12.99, plus shipping and handling. To order the book, call 1-800-336-8373

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sewingwithnancy.com/2815. Order item Number BK2726 "Seams Unlikely." To pay by check or money order call the number on the screen for details. Visit Nancy's website at nancyzieman.com. to see additional episodes, Nancy's blog, and more. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest airing sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman has been brought to you by Baby Lock; Madeira Threads; Koala Studios; Clover; Amazing Designs and Klass Needles. Closed captioning funding provided by Pellon. Sewing with Nancy is a co-production of Nancy Zieman Productions and Wisconsin Public Television.