The Hill Institute is a Northampton and Florence, MA institution that’s been teaching sewing, weaving, carpentry, and other technical skills for more than a hundred years. I took a tailoring class there over the last couple of weeks, to improve my sewing, and I have to say I’m pretty happy with the results.
I learned to make welt pockets (there’s one, just under my lapels, in the first photo), as well as lined patch pockets; and I learned how to do a number of other small corrections which should improve my sewing skills substantially. Very happy with that small up-skilling. Still need to work on attaching linings to garments, though, and I need to work on developing a lining pattern that’s more effective than the one which came with this garment in the first place. However, I did have to make some small alterations to this pattern, notably in extending the armscye to accommodate my beefy arms. Still a lot of improvements to make, but I’m a lot better for just a little practice under an accomplished tailor’s eye.
I don’t know that clothes make the man, really. But there’s something to be said for having clothes that demonstrate an interest, especially in something like astronomy or astrology. This Capricorn season, I’ll finish my first six months of astrology columns, which began with Sun in Leo I back in late July. Maybe it was time to have a vested demonstration of my growing talents, by the creation of a garment to accompany the interest.
awesome fabric for a fine astrologer’s vest. where did you find it? i’m hoping it is not sold out 🙂
I’ve no idea if it’s sold out or not. It came to me in a box of fabric that someone else “retired” from their fabric collection — and its likely irreplaceable. If you have a size 50-52 chest, it might fit you and I’ll sell it to you (once I’ve put buttons on, and sewed button holes). But yea, the fabric’s done (though I can probably get more of the blue lining).