Where we began.

Earlier this week, I asked you to tell me how you began sewing. The comments are fabulous. 

I honestly think I was destined to work with my hands, I have always had an aptitude for it. I can close my eyes and visualize how something should go together. At a very young age, I remember my mom cutting a skirt pattern out, and I caught the fact that the plaid would not match up at the side seam. Also around that time, my mom had a friend who was into sewing and helped me make a vest. I sewed beads and trims by hand to the front border. It was meticulous work that I take pride in having done to this day.

I am so glad I had Home Ec in high school, kids these days don’t even know about it! I am showing my age!

I also think it is funny that so many of us who sew will hold onto a restriction, like fear of zippers and buttons.

Bernina 550, Mixed Media Painting by Melanie Testa Female magazine

When I was given the serger I spoke of, I took lessons in how to use it. It is a scary machine, having 4 threads two of which stay on the top, two that meander through the inner workings of the machine. If one gets broken, it can be a tricky, fiddle-worthy event. The teacher looked at me and reminded me that I was working with a machine and that I was in control. That bit of advice has gone a really long way for me.

It helps that this Bernina 550 replicates buttonholes with advanced and simple controls! Ha.

Check this and this out. I think I may have to look into Alabama Chanin’s books! Do any of you own one of her books? Can you recommend one? This one? Alabama Studio Sewing + Design: A Guide to Hand-Sewing an Alabama Chanin Wardrobe

Tell me.

How did you start sewing?

I think I was maybe 20 years old when I decided to set up my mom’s sewing machine and started making bags. I remember feeling overwhelmed by the pattern I bought. Soon after this, I found a sewing teacher. She was a retired Home Economics professor. I took weekly lessons from her, she taught me to iron, cut, sew, she gave me a serger (a friend of hers needed to find a home for it, and I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time).

I was a sewing machine operator at a furniture manufacturer for a few years, that was dull but taught me some good sewing work habits, how to keep the cloth moving straight through the machine, how to hold my scissors for quick clips, how to cut squares to make pillows with welted corners. 

Then I found a job as a sample cutter for a women’s fashion house. I loved that job! It was a fast paced job and I drank up techniques, approaches and ideas. I worked with some fabulous pattern makers, sample sewers and people. I watched as my boss came back from fittings, kept an eye on her as she would add volumes, shift darts, lengthen, shorten and fix garments. It was a very interesting job.

During this time I began quilting, put the sewing away, even told myself sewing clothing was too fussy and difficult. Normally, I sew clothing in the summer time. Skirts, dresses, reconstructions. I don’t know that I have the skills to sew a silk blazer, but I do know how to set a sleeve. So here I am, living in NYC, near some of the best fabric stores in the worlds and the clothing sewing bug has bit me hard.

If you would like to do a sew along with me, I have been looking for free and interesting patterns for you. Can you handle that? Japanese sewing patterns for women, men and children! 

I will reveal the entire blouse soon.

So, tell me about you. How did you get into sewing? Did you always quilt?

And take my survey and sign up for my book giveaway!

Almost every pattern

A few of you have said you would like to have a sew along, well? I think I have found a book (for myself). Remember you can sew anything you want along with us. If you want to tackle a Japanese Pattern, I bet it will be easier in a group, we could help each other decipher the directions. Cheryl, RooBeeDoo and Jeannie? Are you still in? It is fine to back out, no worries.

Me and my gal went into the city and bumbled around the Fashion District. I have never been to Mood, and oh, no. Yes. See? I just want at the knits and linen floor again. This pattern book has several pieces I would like to make and I see surface design possibilities everywhere. I wish I could read enough to figure out the publishers web site or find the authors blog.

And don’t forget to take my survey and enter your name to win a signed copy of my book.

I wonder what it would be like to go to the fashion district with the camcorder…

Survey Says!

Hi there-Please take a few minutes to fill out my online workshop survey. Ten questions, nothing fancy.

As incentive for responding,  I will give away, at random, up to three signed copies of my book. The number of copies given away will depend on the number of responses tallied.  So please, take the survey, leave a comment to enter your name in the giveaway and then email, facebook or otherwise contact your friends and art buddies so that they too will take the survey and perhaps win a copy of my book. Your enthusiasm and input will be (and is) greatly appreciated.

A New Day, A New Week.

Wood Block Stamps and Music

I opened my mail last week to find this CD, sent by Meg Cox. The woman who heads the band is also a breast cancer survivor and although this is not the type of music I gravitate to, this album is really good. It is uplifting, danceable and has been on rotation since its arrival. Great stuff.

You also see some woodblocks from Colouricious in this last photo.

Making rules as I go, Boro Dress, Art Clothing

I have been on a mission. I am defining (redefining?) what clothing needs to be and how I might participate in the making of it. This will be a dress. A boro style dress, made just for me, using scrap, recycled bits of cloth, oak gall dyed organza and an indian sari. In my mind, clothing needs to fit well and be machine washable. It could also be pretty, inspiring, well made,  and interesting. 

I have always wanted to dress differently. I ‘see’ clothing that is not available on the market. It is time to start actualizing what I see.  

From Messy to Clean and Back

6x6 Journal, hot press watercolor paper

I don’t know how it works for you but at Casa Melly, the studio gets messy as all get out, I can’t stand it anymore, I can’t clean while in the middle of project. Then, just when it is driving me batty, I clean it up, spic and span. 

Highline Drawings

While my studio was clean and approachable, I opened a journal to find gentle little drawings that I did while walking the High Line. I drew this last fall, while I was going through radiation treatment, I had gotten to the cancer care center too early and so took a walk on the High Line. The great thing about New York City is that New Yorkers are not generally, morning people, but I am. So I sat down next to some pretty flowers and drew. I drew in pencil and painted when I got home. I used pen later still. My journal pages are completed over time, not in one sitting or in one place. I don’t think this page is complete even still.

JJ Made these.

I asked a friend to make me a set of tiny sanding blocks and this is what she came up with. It turns out, when I paint with acrylics on pine board that I love debride, sand and deconstruct the surface of my work. What better way to get in small places than with tiny little sanding blocks? Super cute, right?

Finding Inspiration

Books I find inspirational.

Textile Design and its history is fascinating to me. I would love to gather more books on the topic, but in the meantime, I would like to share a few books with you just in case you haven’t heard of them before.  Textile Designs: Two Hundred Years of European and American Patterns Organized by Motif, Style, Color, Layout, and Period has been in print for more than 20 years. It reads like a catalog and each section and page is focused on a style, type of repeat and motif. Flipping through this book is pure eye candy.

Twentieth Century Textiles is a gorgeous book. The cover is a printed cotton design described within the pages of the book, each design is described in detail and artists are discussed. I think we easily forget that artists design the fabrics we use and wear, so when I am able to read about the artist, inspiration or even techniques used to paint the textile design, I get happy.

Boro – Rags And Tatters From The Far North Of Japan isn’t a ‘textile design’ book so much as visual inspiration in the realm of hand sewing. Whenever I take out my favorite textile books, Boro-Rags and Tatters comes out too.

I would like a few more tomes and if you have a suggestion, I would love to hear it.

I take these books out at the start of a creative day and page through, looking at color inspiration, motif, texture, any detail that pops out and says hello. Then I close the books and go on my way. All that history and color is bound to affect me somehow and I welcome it.

The Wonders

This weekend my Mom came to town and we hung out and, come on! Neither of us brought our cameras! I can tell you we went to see Porgy and Bess, I have been humming the tunes all weekend- we loved it. We had a glass of wine at Morrell, went to Nintendo World (where I want to go with my Man). When I was first diagnosed we bought a Wii, thinking it would help keep me active, even when I was at my worst and needing to stay home. I must say, we were right and Oh! Is it fun, we both really love it. Mom has one too. Then we ate at Gaby. When I brought my Mom to Grand Central Terminal, we did this goofy thing. It was great.

You may have caught on that I will be teaching online workshops soon! I hope you are interested in working with me in this way! I know that I want to get your creative juices flowing to to get inspired by you! That is the great thing about teaching, it goes both ways. As I reorganize my virtual life, I am shutting down the Inspired to Quilt Facebook page and centralizing my social media efforts in my main facebook account, please friend me there! I am sure you understand the challenge of keeping up with social media, I for one would like to simplify and concentrate my efforts.

 I few weeks back I met up with Victoria Findlay Wolfe who has two blogs and a web site. Blog 1 <—-Click it, and Blog 2 <—-Click that! Victoria is a genuinely nice person. Artistically I like what she is doing and I feel inspired by her. Afterward she sent me a  few linens and hankies through the mail. This odd piece of lace was part of a sachet that I have since taken apart and plan to use in a dress I am making.

 I have begun to paint on pine board, and love it! The two photos in this post are the same painting, or the start of the same painting. It doesn’t look like it, does it? I will show an overall photo when the painting is a more established visual.

And look at this little king. So happy.