#FridaySews

The title of this post is a cryptic YouTube reference from the sewing world, in case you were wondering.

I did a bit of detective work regarding the Mimosa dress and it appears that horizontal seamline in the skirt is a design element; it unites two convex curves and makes the skirt bell out in the shape that it does. I suppose one could eliminate that seamline, but it would change the way the dress hangs. Food for thought.

Part of what I don’t like about that seamline is that many of the variations I’ve seen must have been made on a serger and that seam ripples unattractively. There is a way to avoid that: use the widest stitch setting (7 or 9 mm, depending on the model), adjust the differential feed, and lengthen the stitch. I use that trick when sewing bulky sweater knits and it does make a difference.

I made a grocery bag for my mother yesterday. I have enough fabric for a second one, but I’m going to send this one to her to see if the design needs any changes. I reverse engineered this version from a bag she has and uses. Her original bag was made of oly*fun, a kind of special poly-something material from Fairfield. (They are cagey about describing it, but it’s obviously something petroleum based.) A lot of grocery stores are selling resuable bags made from that material. It’s feels like a cross between paper and fabric.

She had purchased some outdoor canvas material—Joanns carries Solarium and Sunbrella—which is a bit thicker but still worked well. I beefed up the design by adding polyester webbing straps that completely encircle the bag and support the bottom. The inside seams were serged to keep the fabric from raveling. I was pleased with the end product. I’ll share a picture once the design is approved.

I had a Zoom conversation yesterday morning with a member of the marketing team for a publishing company that produces a lot of sewing books. I reached out to that publisher a couple of months ago about having some of their authors on the podcast. Most publishers now require the author to come up with a marketing plan, one that relies heavily on social media. I had one of this publishing company’s authors on the podcast a few months ago and she was trying to market her book at the same time she was delivering a baby. 🫤

In any case, I thought it would be a win-win for both sides. I’d get some guests for the podcast and they would get some free publicity. We’ll see what happens going forward.

I’m a bit frustrated with the podcast at the moment. I’ve hit a plateau with the number of listeners and I am not quite sure how to break through. I get e-mails from people who say that they began listening recently but then went back and binge listened to all the previous episodes, and people generally only do that when they really like something. I can’t get anyone to leave a review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, though, and finding interview guests is like pulling teeth. I’ve had people say yes and then ghost me. People don’t respond to e-mails asking to nail down an interview date.

I’m going to give it until the end of the year and reassess. No sense beating my head against the wall if I can’t attract enough listeners to make the effort worthwhile. I have had some suggestions about doing video on YouTube instead of an audio podcast, but I’m reluctant to go the video route for a variety of reasons. The podcast does have a YouTube channel so people can listen to it there if they choose.

UPS delivered my new Kenneth King book yesterday:

I started reading it last night. The concepts make a lot more sense now than they would have before I took the trouser class, but I am going to have to study them and (hopefully) practice on some of my students.