threadWEAR 301

 Welcome to the Cottage Shirt Sew Along! This new shirt pattern is designed to be worn oversized and has a generous amount of ease. The shirt is somewhat cropped and can be worn over another layer such as a tank or tee, or it can be lengthened using the printed lengthen and shorten line. Today we are going to discuss tips for getting started on your sewing journey. Let's get sewing!

​Sew Arkansas is our annual sewing retreat held in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We look forward to this special event every year as a chance to put ourselves into a new environment where we can focus solely on sewing. This year we added a new dimension to the retreat – fabric dyeing with guest teacher Nancy Shriber!

Every time I go to teach at Mulberry Silks in Carrboro, North Carolina, I come home with more inspiration than I can possibly give to my students. The work of Nancy Quaintance never fails to just bowl me over.

Nancy was a guest contributor for Sew Confident! 2016. Her tutorial called Artistic Piecing shows her range of artistic talents. I love how she has an eye for using elegant fabrics and combining them with ease. I have never seen Nancy look anything but totally put together, and she is a person who wears what she sews and is not afraid to experiment.

I've always liked the look of the West End Jacket. It is a great looking, casual jacket that can be thrown over anything. However, I am not a fan of a hood, so I have avoided making it. But when I was thinking about making a garment using our fabulous Palm Tree fabric, I decided that it was time to tackle a woven, hoodless version of the West End. Creating the jacket without the hood was incredibly simple, involving just a few tweaks to the pattern. Read along to see how I did it and make your own!

Somewhere along the line, I became interested in making small fabric collages using scraps of fabrics left over from my days as an interior designer and also incorporating vintage textiles collected along the way. This has now become such a passion for me that I am willing to travel a very long way to take classes from expert artists in this field. My favorite is Mandy Pattullo, who lives and works in the UK.