building block dress online book tour wrap up

Well, that was fun! I really enjoyed seeing all the different ways our friends who participated in the online portion of the Building Block Dress book tour sewed their own dresses using techniques from the book. I hope you did too. Did you get any ideas from the tour? There was such a wide variety of styles, I hope you were inspired by one or more of them.

I thought it was especially interesting to see how each person expressed her own style using the basic elements from the book. Since this was the first time most people were sewing from the book, almost everyone made just a few changes to the dress pattern itself. That’s how I recommend that you get started, too. Pick one or two elements that you really like and give them a try. Then, once you’ve gained a little confidence, you’ll be ready to tackle more complicated changes to the pattern. I’ll talk more about that in the months to come, once you’ve had a little time to get comfortable and gain some practice. And I have lots of ideas to share with you to demonstrate other ways you can use the book!

In the meantime, now that the online portion of the book tour has wrapped up, I’m packing my bags, prepping my class materials, and getting ready for the U.S. in-person part of the book tour. First stop, Houston. But for those of you who aren’t in an area I’ll be visiting, we’ve got something fun for you too!

I’ll fill you in on all the details later this week, but here’s a teaser. We’re planning a fun contest that involves looking at fabric and winning prizes. Plus, you can include the whole family! We’ve teamed up with one of my favorite fabric manufacturers, Robert Kaufman, for this.

As you may know, I used mostly Kaufman fabrics for the dresses in the Building Block Dress book. Kaufman manufacturers a wide range of apparel fabrics (from denim to twill, corduroy, lawn, sateen, and more) that I like quite a bit. Heck, I like Kaufman so much I even designed a collection of my own for them!

I’ll be back on Wednesday to tell you all about the contest. But in the meantime, get those colored pencils sharpened and your markers all lined up.