When the lovely ladies at the Smocking Arts Guild of America approached me last year and asked if I would be their featured guest teacher at their annual conference (September 19-21 which is coming up very soon!), I really didn’t know what to do for them. After all, they’re smocking geniuses over there; I’m much less experienced (but loving every moment of it as I experiment with smocking contemporary apparel).
But after lots of discussion and tossing around ideas (thank you, everyone on the discussion forums, for your helpful input), we put together what I think is going to be an amazing set of classes. I’ve been working on preparations all year and am really happy with how they’re coming together. I’ve designed a brand new dress pattern specifically for these classes (it’s not available anywhere else), and we’ll be using that pattern to develop many, many different dress styles all from one pattern. You know all those little tutorials we’ve been doing, showing you how to customize our patterns? Well, you’ll be learning these techniques in a much bigger way in these classes!
Basically, you’ll learn some extremely useful pattern-making techniques that you can incorporate into all your sewing. After these classes you’ll be able to develop your own dresses in your own style and preferences and you’ll feel confident enough to make changes to those dresses to develop a lot of different looks. All from one pattern. No fancy pattern-making diploma required! No drafting patterns from scratch. You’ll simply manipulate the pattern I’ll be giving you into many different styles. And you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to do.
Which is my way of saying, “Are you coming?” I hope so! I hope to open your eyes the same way my eyes were opened in my very first day of pattern-making class. I’ll be giving away all my secrets here. OK, maybe not all of them. But many of them, at least.
And no, you don’t need to know how to smock or be a member of the Guild to come. These classes will be great for sewists at any level of skill and experience. You can find all the details here. I hope to see you in Orlando in a few weeks!
In physical agony at not being able to attend — this is my dream class!
Sarvi, let’s hope Liesl comes to the west coast to do the same class.
Both hands in the air….we are, we are!!! VERY EXCITED about this conference!! Your class topics are areas we want to improve upon {and not struggle through as much}. We’ve got some pretty high hopes about you making our lives much easier… 🙂 No pressure…
We are planning to meet up with Teresa {of Dandelion Drift, and the competitor winner of the “Flip this Pattern: Croquet Dress”} after we all attend the “open to the public” lecture on Friday afternoon.
Counting down here….
Ah, wish I could attend something like this. I would love to learn patternmaking! Gotta wait until my little boy is older though:-(.
Please do give us a post-workshop blog!
Hi I’m in Florida and my daughters here right now and she would like to learn patterning.How do I get in touch with you so I can have her meet with you and learnPlease contact me as soon as you can I’m in Orlando but I’m willing to drive. She’s 19
Sonya, this blog post is from 2014, and the event was held in that year. Liesl doesn’t have any future teaching engagements lined up for 2020.