The first Dressmakers Social Meetup At the Marwood Coffee Shop happened last Monday and it was a fantastic success. I'd heard that you should expect to see about a quarter of the people who said they would come along actually turn up on the day. So imagine my surprise to see approx. 40 people when I was expecting about 10!
Everyone got a name badge to avoid those awkward "what is your name again?" moments, the badges also had space for twitter and instagram names as I have been introduced as @craftyandcake (my other instagram account) before rather than Emma!
The room filled up quickly with lots of lovely dressmakers and the evening started off with mingling and chatting. Just in case anyone was stuck for something to say I made some conversation starters that were scattered around the room.
Edith arrived with the Lucky Flyer that I had left somewhere is Brighton, congratulations Edith! so after we had bought her a drink we headed upstairs for me to make my welcome speech.
I really need to work on my photo face when I introduce guests! This is me introducing the fantastic Wendy Ward, owner of MIY Workshop, pattern designer/producer at MIY Collection and author of The Beginners Guide to Dressmaking.
Wendy did a fabulous talk with an informative handout on Practical Tips for Planning your Home-Sewn Collection. The handout can be found on her Facebook page here.
Her talk included great bits of advice like...
Look through magazines and pick out clothes that you would like to wear and then look for patterns.
Dress sizes are not important - what you need are accurate measurements!
Different fabrics can make different garments from the same pattern. As shown here with jersey and sparkly versions of the Shrug pattern.
By making your own clothes you are contributing to sustainable fashion.
Choose your fabric by how it feels, drapes and feels against your skin, not just what colour and pattern it is.
The talk came to a close with questions from the audience, which included where to buy patterns for curvier and taller ladies. Some links answering this question can be found on the Dressmakers Social Facebook page here!
A very big THANK YOU Wendy! for such a great talk to start the Dressmakers Social meet ups.
To end the evening, drinks were finished, conversations wrapped up and that was it for the first Dressmakers Social!
Big THANK YOU to all of the lovely dressmakers that came along :)
Join us next month on Monday 22 June, 6-8pm at the Marwood Coffee Shop, 52 Ship Street, Brighton for another chance to meet other dressmakers and talk all things, garment sewing, fabric and pattern cutting related. There will also be a Q&A session with the incredibly knowledgeable Gill Thornley from Ditto Fabrics! I can't wait!
In the mean time keep up to date and in touch with us at...
Instagram: @dressmakerssocial Twitter: @dressmakersbton
Meet up: www.meetup.com/Dressmakers-Social-Brighton/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dressmakerssocial
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