Even small producers carefully test designs
| • | More Island women sewing designs from small independents |
| • | Fashion Calendar |
By Paula Rath
Advertiser Staff Writer
Although I was trained to draft my own patterns in fashion design school, sometimes it just seems easier to buy a pattern. Like the women I interviewed for this story, I had some negative experiences with patterns from the large pattern companies. They didn't fit or the instructions weren't clear to me. After hours of planning, cutting and sewing, I gave the garments to Goodwill.
At a wearable art conference in Monterey, Calif., in 1999, I discovered The Sewing Workshop pattern collection. The company's owner, Linda Lee, brought a rack full of garments made from their patterns. I liked every one and bought several.
These are patterns that will fit nearly every body with few, if any, alterations. They are not clingy and tight, nor boxy and oversized. They have great shape and style. The instructions are perfectly clear (I learned to miter corners properly, a feat that defeated me with my textbook explanations).
I have made the same blouse (my favorite, the Kinenbi Top) in different fabrics, and it's impossible to tell they are from the same pattern.
How do they do it? Karine Langan of the San Francisco-based sewing and design school said "we either see a design we like or go to a designer who wants to sell us a design they don't want to put into production. Sometimes we like it, but not everything about it, so we change it."
They often buy patterns from Sewing Workshop instructors like Tara Arnold, who specializes in garments that fold like origami.
In order to ensure the fit and clarity of the patterns and instructions, The Sewing Workshop holds pattern-testing retreats for 6 to 8 women at a time in the Midwest and California. The retreats last 2 1/2 days.
They're like old-fashioned quilting bees, with the women talking while they sew. Lee attends the retreats with notepad in hand. She writes the pattern guide sheets while the sewing is going on. Every question and suggestion made by the women as they sew is noted.
The patterns are tested one at a time and not more often than one every three months. Sometimes two rounds of testing are required to get it just right.
Fit is critical. Lee tries to size the pattern for the women who are attending the retreat. Langan said they have found some designs simply will not work for a mass audience. These are dropped.
The Sewing Workshop patterns are not sold in Hawai'i. But it's easy to purchase patterns on the Internet, and the Web site is great.
