After recovering from a bout with the traveler’s stomach flu that kept Morgan out of the community on Monday and Tuesday, we were finally about to recommence the sewing workshop yesterday.
Last week, our first workshop focused on cultivating inspiration. All of Nest’s loan recipients are talented artists and artisans, who not only have developed their manual skills in craft, but who have also trained their eyes and their minds to recognize beauty all around them and translate those images into exquisite goods. The first sewing session in the Batey sought to encourage our women to begin opening their eyes and recognizing how “ordinary” beauty in one’s environment can be the source of brilliant ideas for new products. I brought in a dark green leaf with bright magenta veins that I had picked from a tree nearby, and explained that its coloring or shape could be the inspiration for a project. They were encouraged to begin keeping a sketchbook, where they can paste images from magazines, swatches of beautiful fabric, pressed flowers from their garden, and keep notes about what they see around them that elicits joy and motivation.
In the second workshop of last week, we covered all the items in their sewing toolkits and in the accessory boxes that came with their machines. We explained the difference between dressmaker’s shears and regular scissors, how a seam gauge helps you measure your hems and align seams, how to use a disappearing-ink marker, and introduced the women to the fun of ripping out stitches that go awry with the weapon-like seam ripper, also known as therapy for frustrated seamstresses.
Wednesday was our first workshop in the new studio, which is newly equipped with seven treadle machines, an iron and ironing board, and complete sewing toolkits that include scissors, needles, pins and pincushions, seam rippers, seam gauges, sewing rulers, tailor’s chalk, fabric markers, and spools of thread in every color of the rainbow. Over the weekend, we hired a carpenter from the community to build a cutting table in the back part of the studio and shelves to store extra buttons, bobbins, thread and fabric.
The session began with a brief discussion on the anatomy and mechanics of the machine. The more we know about how it works, the easier it is to solve a problem when something goes wrong. The women studied their manuals and memorized all the machine parts and their functions.
Yesterday’s workshop concluded with a little no-thread sewing. In order to get the women comfortable with their treadle machines, which are a bit more difficult to operate than electric machines, I had them sew on paper without threading the needle. This allowed them to concentrate on learning to pump the pedal and turn the hand wheel just right, without having to worry about thread tangles and tension. Treadle sewing isn’t easy in the beginning. It takes a lot of practice to get the right rhythm and timing, but by the end of the session, all ten women were running their machines like a dream. A few were even sewing circles on their paper and making designs with the needle’s puncture marks. Ten seamstresses are born!
