Pants Class Was a Success

The first time teaching a class is always a bit nervewracking because I just don’t know what problems are going to crop up. By the third time I taught Serger 101, I had a pretty good idea what questions people would have. This pants class was a totally new ballgame.

Funny story: I was getting dressed yesterday morning and went to put on the lovely stretch bengaline Renee pants that I made last week. Did you know that bengaline stretches vertically, not horizontally? No, neither did I. The pants wouldn’t go up past my knees. I had cut the pieces with the grainline parallel to the selvedges—as I would have if making them out of ponte—to maximize the stretch in the horizontal direction. The problem is that with bengaline, there is no horizontal stretch to maximize. I took them anyway and showed them in class. If I can’t be a good example, I should be a horrible warning. I will see if Hobby Lobby has more of that fabric and make another pair and cut them perpendicular to the selvedges. I decided to wear a pair of jeans and my Laundry Day Tee, instead.

As it turned out, one student called in sick, so I only had two in class. They happened to be two students I’ve had before. One works at the quilt store and used to be a patternmaker in Los Angeles. She doesn’t have a lot of experience sewing clothes, but she knows the process of pattern drafting inside and out. I love having her in class. The other lady makes clothes for herself and her grandchildren, but always out of wovens. She wants to become more comfortable with her serger so she can start making clothes out of knits.

Marci, the woman with pattern drafting experience, had made herself a couple of muslins (out of some 1970s vintage plaid double knit) before class, which ended up giving us a huge head start. The two ladies differ in height, but they were close enough in size otherwise that the muslin fit both of them. I had each of them try it on and we talked about where the fitting issues were. They had to make only minor adjustments to their pattern pieces. My brilliant stroke of genius was to tell them that we would wait to put the waist darts in until we got the rest of the pants fit properly. (The pattern has you sew the darts as the first step.) My other stroke of genius was bringing all my leftover ponte fabric so that they could make muslins before cutting into the good fabric. I only had enough fabric for them to make bike shorts, not full length pants, but that gave us the fitting information we needed.

This is Marci cutting out her bike shorts:

And this is Ariella assembling hers:

One of the most gratifying things about teaching is seeing a student gain confidence as class goes along. Ariella came to class not sure if she would like wearing these pants, both because of the style and because she isn’t used to wearing knits. I could see how much more relaxed she got with her serger as class went on, but the fun part was when she finished her muslin, changed into it, and came back out into the classroom. The bike shorts fit her perfectly and she liked the way they fit without the darts in them. She also wondered how the pants would look with a flowy knit top, so I went into the bathroom, took off the LDT, and let her try it on with her pants. She’s a convert.

I helped Marci mark the dart placements on her bike shorts. We also measured her inseam because she had to shorten her pants quite a bit. (Her inseam is 25”; mine is 33”, which is another indication of how much bodies differ.)

All in all, I couldn’t be happier with how this class went. Certainly, having two students with experience in clothes sewing and patternmaking helped. I think that for future classes, I am going to specify that students bring clearance fabric for making muslins and save the good fabric until we get the fitting issues worked out. I know the stores would rather the students buy the good fabric for the class, but they will lose customers if someone spends a lot of money on good fabric that ends up being an unwearable garment. I could load up on bolts of clearance fabric and factor that cost into the cost of the class, too. Stores are used to people buying supplies for quilting classes, but clothing classes are not like quilting classes.

I got a lot of comments on the Laundry Day Tee, both at that quilt store and the other quilt store. (I stopped at the quilt store north of town to drop off my home dec samples after class was over.) I think that if I do another T-shirt class, I’ll purchase the teaching license for the LDT. That style is flattering to many different body types and wouldn’t require a lot of fitting adjustments.

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We had a windstorm overnight. It was one of those windstorms where the pressure gradient sets up over the Continental Divide and the winds come back down the mountains from the east. Our house faces east, so I had to close the bedroom and bathroom windows down to cracks because the pleasant crossbreeze we get at night had turned into gale force winds. When the husband came to bed, I said that I had no idea a windstorm was in the forecast. He said that the windstorm had been in the forecast on the NOAA weather radio that he keeps on in the shop. I checked the NBC Montana weather app on my iPad and noted that we were under a high wind warning—a warning that had only been issued about an hour previously. I said that someone probably looked out the window and noticed the wind was blowing, so they decided to issue a wind warning. He told me I was too cynical.

[I’d love to have a job where I got paid big bucks to be wrong so often.]

The winds have died down now. I’ll be out in the garden this morning until it gets too warm to work out there, although the high is only supposed to be 78F. A heat wave is in the forecast for next week and we’ll be back up into the 90s. I’ve got two serger classes on the schedule, one of which is the Spokane class. I am trying to decide which route to take over to Spokane. The road is open near the fire, but I’d prefer to avoid that area if possible.