The spring issue of Stitch Magazine has landed! Start dreaming of the warm days ahead with 36 new projects! This special issue focuses on 5 themes: bird motifs for baby & home decor, al fresco projects for the great outdoors, combining dots & stripes, working with tiny prints, and hand sewing. Read about the Scandinavian design influence with articles about Marimekko & Lotta Jansdottir, learn tips and tricks for proper pressing, and an interview with designer Joel Dewberry! Awesome!

This issue is especially exciting because one of the designs belongs to Spool sewing instructor, Heather Holiday! Congratulations, lady! Her adorable Lola Clutch is looking like THE perfect accessory for spring- so much so that Heather will be teaching a special class on her pretty project in February! Many of you have learned to sew with Heather and know what an enthusiastic instructor she is. Learn how to make pleats, use interfacing and install a magnetic snap from the Lola Clutch expert!

If you’d like to join us, please call the shop to register. Here are the details:

Lola Clutch
$40 plus materials
Saturday February 11: 12-3PM

Materials: Stitch Magazine, 1/2 yard of 2 fabrics, 1/4 yard interfacing, thread, magnetic snap.

I must admit I was very surprised to see snowflakes in the weather report for our region these past few days. March can be tricksy that way, I know, but I am still ready to put away my puffy winter coat for good!

I want clear skies and flowers and colors! So, for the moment, I will find them in my fabrics! Our Digital Sky fabric bundle is really hitting the spot for all things bright and blooming. It is so cool how these fabrics from three different artists work together so well!

The first and last are from current Art Gallery Fabrics collections, the center floral is from Tanya Whelan’s Dolce line, and the rest are from Habitat by Jay McCarroll. I love how the traditional prints works so well with the more wild Habitat. While all the fabrics have a pretty blue sky background, what really unifies them are the subtle touches of cocoa and pale yellow playing across the prints. Lovely!

For a quilt, pair these with a dark chocolate solid to make the bright colors pop or a crisp white for an ultra modern look. These would also be so fun as napkins and placements for al fresco dining this summer!

Yes, it’s true, we will be able to eat outdoors someday soon. I promise! For now, we’ll just have to dream on the warm weather and live vicariously through our favorite colorful fabrics!

I am loving our new Pleated Tank! Spool sewing instructor, Deb, stitched this up using Kwik Sew 3691 and Art Gallery Fabrics new line, Bazaar. She did such a lovely job! I am such a sucker for any print that resembles stitching lines, and I love how the how the zigzags play across the pleating at the neckline. It’s all in the details!

I realize we are just coming out of a long winter, but the Philly summer will be be upon us before you know it! I promised myself during those ultra cold, snowy days that I would not complain about the heat this year. I have feeling this little number will help me keep that promise! Art Gallery Fabrics are printed on a very fine cotton, lending itself beautifully to garment sewing. It makes for a lightweight, but slightly drapey piece. Nice and airy for the summer months! The shape is simple and easy. You can wear it under a jacket or cardi for work, and with jeans and flip flops for weekend brunch!

Kwik Sew 3691 comes with 2 options for a neckline: pleated (as shown) and cowl. Deb sewed this in an afternoon, and said that cutting the pattern & fabric and stitching the body, including the pleating, went quickly. Finishing and sewing the facings took a little extra time, but that is what makes the garment look so polished! You want to your pleats to stay nice and crisp, so it’s worth taking it slow in the final stages.

We have several Pleated Tank classes coming up this season! The first session is on Wednesdays, May 4 & 11 from 6-8PM. If you’d like to join us, please call the shop to reserve your space.

Our new class schedule is up! Yay!

I am happy to say that there are now 3 opportunities a week to take our Learn to Sew class! Philly is going to be stitching like crazy! In addition to more sessions of the always popular Aline Skirts class, we have classes for 4 different skirt styles & two different dresses. Add in our purse classes and we’ve got your Spring wardrobe covered!

Learn to quilt by machine or by hand (or both!) and update your home decor with our pillow, tablerunner, and roman shades classes. Take advantage of our Home Ec Series where we explore sewing fundamentals. We even have new classes to start sewing for little ones!

Spring is shaping to be quite creative! Which class will you take?

I can’t wait to stitch up and wear these designs from new pattern company Sewn. Square One for Your Style! When I went to Quilt Market, our industry’s trade show, in October, the Sewn booth was looked amazing. Designed with the novice seamstress in mind, these pattern are stylish and have an eye for detail. They look unlike any other currently on the market. I could see myself and my fellow crafty ladies wearing these garments all time!

Since I was so excited about these designs, I contacted designer Lorraine Torrence to learn more about her and her inspiration. She agreed to an email interview, and I’m so glad she did. It’s so fun to get to know more about the people behind the patterns we sew! Stay tuned this week for posts featuring the Sewn patterns we’ve sampled here at the shop, so be sure to check back to see what we’ve made!

I read in your website bio that you have a BFA and an MFA in Sculpture, and have been teaching, sewing & designing for over 30 years. Amazing! Obviously, you are a woman that loves to make things! How did you get started sewing, and how did that translate into your own wearable art design company?

I have always loved to make things with my hands and decided at the age of 7 that I wanted to be an artist. At that time, of course, being an artist meant drawing. I learned to sew as an adolescent, with teen sewing classes at the local Singer dealership where my mother signed me up, 4-H sewing and mandatory sewing and cooking in High School back in the 50′s. As a junior in High School, I announced that I wanted to pursue a career in fashion design, but by the time I was a senior, I was applying to colleges as an art major. I spent 4 years in college as an art major, concentrating on drawing and painting, but actually worked my way through college (with the help of a scholarship) sewing for people. The drama department hired me to do costumes the costume crews couldn’t handle and I made winter coats and even wedding dresses for graduating seniors who were getting married.

After spending 5 years working and traveling after college (all the while sewing and making art in one form or another) I went back to school to get an MFA in sculpture. I was the lone female in the graduate sculpture department at the University of Washington those three years doing bronze casting and welded steel sculpture. I continued to sew my own clothes and 6 months before I graduated, I made a quilt from my scrap bag as a wedding gift for the foreman of the metal arts facility. I didn’t know anything about making quilts but needed to give a wedding gift without spending money that I didn’t have. My scrap bag was full of solid color garment fabrics in the early 70′s (polyester double knits, synthetic silks and linens, corduroy and velveteen) so I naively, but confidently (how hard could it be?), made what I now know was a machine pieced crazy quilt. I sewed the top and back together like a pillow case and then stuffed the batting inside (!), stitched up the opening and tied it with embroidery thread.

After delivering the quilt to the groom at the U of W metal arts facility, he took the gift home to his bride, whom I had never met, and came back the next day with a message from her. (I found out that she was a grad student in textiles!) She proposed that we share a booth that summer at the Pacific Northwest Arts and Crafts Fair with quilts and quilted items. We juried in April, I graduated in June and immediately stopped making sculpture to finish producing the quilts that were to be in the booth at the Arts and Crafts Fair six weeks later that summer of 1971.

The Quilt Revival had begun in 1970 with the quilt show at the Whitney Museum in New York and several other coinciding quilt events and interest had slowly spread across the country reaching the West Coast the next year. Our quilt booth was enthusiastically received and we sold quilts, got commissions and I was asked to teach a quilting class at a local Park Department Recreation center. I agreed, (how hard could it be?) and started teaching the following spring. I have never made another piece of sculpture since I got my MFA in 1971, but have taught quilting since the spring of 1972. Making art in fabric at home was easier and more intuitive than pouring bronze with a baby in a backpack, since my husband and I had two children within 3 years of my graduation.

As I learned more and more about quilt making, I quickly found myself incorporating quilting skills into garments and once again found my self vending at the Pacific Northwest Arts and Crafts Fair with wearable art. After 5 years of doing production wearables and commission work in wearables, I gave up on trying to make money this way but continued teaching quilting. In 1996 I started publishing a garment pattern line, Lorraine Torrence Designs. My business grew and in 2000 I bought another pattern company, Grainline Gear, from another designer. The seven patterns I’ve added to Grainline Gear have been designed by two other designers to whom I pay royalties.

The Sewn Patterns booth was a total stand out at Quilt Market! It looked wonderful. What made you start Sewn? What was your inspiration for these designs?

In 2008 I enlisted the help of one of my design students who works in marketing to give me some business advice about marketing my two lines of garment patterns. One of her first questions to me was “What market are you not serving?” I had to say it was young people. I had been designing and publishing patterns for middle aged women. It was then I decided to join the industry-wide movement to introduce sewing to the younger generation by introducing a new garment pattern line with younger, hipper style and “learn-to-sew” instructions.

Knowing that I could not wrap my head around what young women liked to wear, I took on an intern, Elizabeth Pursley, a 25 year old young woman with a degree in Fashion Design, to help me with designs for the new line and give me her opinion about the other designs I was considering adding from my Grainline Gear designer, Ruth Vincent. Elizabeth’s friend, Gina Moorhead, also a graduate in Fashion Design, joined the design team and Sewn…square one for your style was born.

My son, Ben Torrence, a graphic designer, was instrumental in coming up with the name and all the graphics for the line including the website design. I asked Elizabeth and Gina to go to Houston with me for Market and run the Sewn booth. I wanted a young face on everything Sewn. (No gray hair in the booth!) The girls did a fabulous job and Elizabeth is helping me with launching all the social media that needs to go with the new line.

At the moment, I am in love with the Go Anywhere Dress. What’s your favorite Sewn Pattern?

Go Anywhere Dress is a great and versatile pattern! Gina designed this one with three sleeve options (sleeveless, short and long sleeves) and three body lengths (T-top, tunic and dress) and a pleated, patch pocket option too. There are lots of ways to combine all of those variables.

I love all six of the patterns but the two that would work best for my body type and age are Small Change (the long view) and Upline Jacket. I think these two are the most “cross-generational!” I made Small Change in a beautiful hand clamped silk by Elin Noble to wear in the Lorraine Torrence Designs booth at Quilt Festival and felt so elegant.

Many of our customers are novice stitchers, and are eager to learn everything about sewing. Any advice for new garment sewers just getting started? What Sewn Pattern should they start with?

There are several great books out there to help people learn to sew and many are geared toward young sewers. A basic sewing class is always helpful, too, especially when there is a good teacher or facilitator. As always, READ THE DIRECTIONS! The easiest of the Sewn patterns is Small Change. It’s just one pattern piece and is very simple to make. I did a sample for the show that had two different sides which I put together (right sides together) and stitched the edges together with raw edges showing. Very simple, quick and so cute! Elizabeth likes it belted.

I realize that Sewn Patterns just launched this month, but what are your plans for the line going forward, if you can share them?

Our first goal is to get the website finished and looking like we want it. We are hoping to get at least a few of our How-To videos on the website before the end of the year. These will be 3-5 minute videos with topics that include “How To Read Your Tissue Pattern,” “How to Adjust the Size of Your Tissue Pattern to Fit You”, “Selecting Fabric that is Appropriate for Your Pattern,” “Seam Finishes – Do I Have To?” and others with specific helps for making the individual patterns. I have already asked Elizabeth and Gina to start working on another pattern each. I’d love to get two more patterns in the line by Summer 2011.

Thanks so much, Lorraine! I have a feeling that Sewn Patterns will be a big hit here at Spool!

Yesterday, Jay McCarroll stopped by with sample yardage from his new collection, Habitat! SO. MUCH. FUN. Since Jay doesn’t have his own blog, (I know, it’s crazy! I’m working on him to start one, don’t worry!) he asked if I wouldn’t mind giving you a sneak peak of these fantastic new prints. How could I say no?!

This is Jay’s latest line with FreeSpirit Fabrics, and as you can see, it is quite a departure from his previous collections Woodland Wonderland, Garden Friends and Germania. While I love the whimsy of his those lines, I feel that, with this, Jay threw the door wide open for new possibilities to wear, carry, and decorate our own habitats!

Habitat is made up of 8 prints in 3 distinct colorways – jewel tones, brights, and earthtones. Jay loves to play with contrasts and contradictions! Urban & pastoral, digital & analog, graphic & organic. He pulls it all together with his signature color sense. For me this collection feels modern, artistic, and personal. A winning combination! Kudos, Jay!

Sharing this is exciting under ANY circumstances, but it’s even more so, because I’ve had the pleasure to watch this collection come together from the beginning. Jay was very generous in sharing his creative process with me, from showing me sketches, color stories, test swatches from the mill, and brainstorming names for the collection. Designing fabric is no joke, people! It’s a lot of work!

I am incredibly flattered that in exchange for my opinions, Jay named one of the fabrics after me! My last name is Singewald, which means “singing woods” or “singing forest” in German. Singing Forest is a gorgeous, faded floral printed over with bold, beautiful polka dots. Awww, thanks Jay! You are too sweet!

Habitat is shipping in January, and Spool will be carrying the entire collection. We will have a big party for Jay and you are all invited! In the meantime, Jay gifted me with a 1/2 yard of each fabric to play and plan with – I am thinking quilt! What types of quilts or projects would you like to see with Habitat?

I’m sure Jay will be reading this, so be sure to leave a comment. I know he’d love to know what you think!

There’s new fabric in the shop from the talented Valori Wells! As soon as I saw Nest, I knew you guys would love it. If there’s one thing we like at Spool, it’s a sweet birdie print! Pair that with a soft, light palette and you have a fabric line that is totally worthy of your nest.

I could see this as pretty pillows and a Springy, cuddly, sofa quilt. It would be wonderful in a nursery; curtains, bumper, crib skirt- the works! Or, for when you need to carry part of the nest with you, make a pretty Birdie Sling with birdie fabric. What would you make?

New skirts! This style is in all the shops this season, and I think it’s adorable. Accentuating the waistline with wide belts and waistbands is a trend I can get behind – so flattering. We used Erin McMorris’ s Go by Bike print and Kaffe Fassett’s Bekah for our skirts. I can picture the first one being worn to an afternoon lunch, while the second can go out for a night on the town. Since this skirt is so quick to make, you can have one for whatever mood strikes you!

Using just 1.5 yards of fabric, 3″ wide elastic and Kwik Sew Pattern 3744, we made our own version of this popular look. Summer style should be all about ease, and this skirt’s elasticized waist can be worn high or low, cutely and comfortably. It even has a pocket for carrying small essentials. You can make this in an afternoon, and get a good understanding of gathering and sewing with elastic, and wear it out that night!

Join us in class to make your very own own skirt of the season. Please call the shop to reserve your space. See you soon!

High Waist Skirt
$45 plus materials

Saturday, June 19: 12-4PM- next week!
Saturday, July 10: 11-3PM
Tuesdays, August 10 & 17: 6-8PM

Materials: Pattern, thread, 1 yard of 3″ wide elastic, 1.5 yards of fabric, optional sew on snap for rosette. All materials are available for purchase at Spool. Use of our sewing machines, rotary cutters, scissors, mats, and rulers are included for class sessions.

Try on Amy Butler’s Mini Dress for Summer! Easy to follow, the pattern includes instructions for a top & tunic, but we went for the full dress. Nothing is better in warm weather than putting on ONE garment, adding flip flops and walking out the door!

We chose Robert Kaufman’s Chambray for our version. Like Shot Cotton, it has a different colored warp and weft, but it’s not as gauzy, allowing for details like the front pleat to really stand out. Isn’t that color gorgeous? One of my customers says that purple is the new black. I can see why!

Pleating details on the straps give the dress that little something extra, and ties in with the deep pleating on the front. Pretty!

Yes, this dress does have a back zipper. Don’t be afraid! I always recommend that sewers jump right in and try out zipper applications, even if you are a newbie. It’s the best way to avoid developing a zipper phobia, and the only way to finish and wear this dress!

Sunday is the first day of my weekend, and when I left the shop on Saturday I asked Olga & Elizabeth to cut and arrange a new Piano Keys Quilt using my fave Shot Cottons du jour. Look what was waiting for me on the design wall when I arrived at the shop this morning!

So lovely! All I wanted to do was sit down and start sewing it together right away. I decided to stay my course, however, and snapped a few photos to share instead! Check out that gradation of color in the border, creating an orderly frame for their favorite pairings at the center. Fantastic! The saturation and depth of the Shot Cotton colors get me very time- I think it would be impossible for me to NOT adore something made with these special fabrics. Great job, Olga & Elizabeth!

It’s amazing how completely different, but equally strong, it looks from my last Piano Keys quilt. This pattern lends itself so well to larger prints, but I’m glad we decided to see what it looked like in all solids. With the cutting and piecing so simple, it gives you a great opportunity to concentrate on playing with pattern and color to your heart’s content!

If you like the looks of this quilt, we are holding a workshop starting this weekend, taught by the pattern’s designer, Sujata Shah. There are only a few spots left, so be sure to call the shop to reserve your space. See you soon!

Piano Keys Quilt
$65 plus materials

Saturdays, May 15 & 22: 11AM-2PM

Materials: Pattern, 10 fat quarters or 1/4 yards, thread. 3 yards backing, 60″ x 60″ batting. Finished size: 44″ x 48″. Pattern includes instructions for a 72″ x 80″ version as well. All materials are available for purchase at Spool. Use of our sewing machines, rotary cutters, scissors, mats, and rulers are included for class sessions.