Leaders Helping Leaders--Sewing

THINKING AHEAD and CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING—THE LEADER’S ROLE---PLUS, A TECHNIQUE TO ELIMINATE SHADOWS AND THE NEED FOR A SLIP

Even if we teach groups of kids, we are teaching individual 4-H’ers to sew. It is a rare group that is all sewing the same project. That may happen in the beginning projects, such as the 4-H Sewing Camp that Maureen and I are planning for this summer. Every child will make a draw-string totebag. Basically the only individualization will be that each child will select his/her own fabric. The rest of the project will be the same for each child—no fitting or bedazzling! Even so, we’ll find individual quirks—varieties in sewing machines, varying aptitudes, speed and quality issues.

When the kids get beyond beginning projects, though, look out! All of a sudden, there are varieties in fabric, pattern, fitting challenges, on and on. As the leader, we have the responsibility to anticipate and plan ahead on behalf of the 4-H’er who is looking to us for guidance. This year, I had the perfect example that I would like to share with you.

I have observed, too often, that kids sometimes choose fabrics that, while opaque, still show shadows of legs. You know, when the sun or a bright light is behind them, you can see the shadow of their legs. Call me Victorian, but I like to avoid that. When I was very small, we wore slips to take care of that. You can still wear a slip to take care of that. However, often the slip and the skirt/dress don’t move together, and the slip ends up sticking out. For that reason, I try to anticipate shadows and, if warranted, add a lining or underlining from the outset.




In the upper left quadrant, you can see the faint shadow
of the tool that I placed behind the fabric.
That would be the shadow of legs when the dress is worn.


This year, one of “my kids” chose a wonderful, buttery soft, rayon knit that she found at Fabric Mart to make a dress with a circle skirt. At some point we realized that we were going to have shadows. 

The solution: add a tricot lining/slip to the skirt only. (We found white tricot at GorgeousFabrics for $5/yard, in case you don’t have a local source.) She cut the lining exactly the same as the fashion fabric, assembled all four panels, and then basted the fashion fabric and the lining, wrong sides together, at the waistline.




The skirt lining was assembled.
Here you see one of the serged seams.



When the pattern instructed to attach the skirt to the bodice, she attached the lining/fashion fabric duo.



Here, the unlined bodice is on the left, the lined skirt is to the right,
and the seam with both fashion fabric and skirt lining runs from top
to bottom of the photo. She serged the edges of all the layers.

We hemmed the fashion fabric skirt using a double needle hem, because it was a knit. Now we had the tricot sticking out.  

Notice the double needle hem in the fashion fabric.
Now the lining hangs below the hemmed skirt.

  


Pins at finished hem length in fashion fabric.
Lining was to be 1" shorter.

We were aiming to make the lining one inch shorter than the dress. While she was wearing the dress, I used pins to mark the place on the tricot where the fashion fabric was finished. 

Dissolving stabilizer was used to allow good tension
on the light weight, single layer of tricot lining hem.

At the ironing table, she marked a cutting line ¾” above the line of pins, using an air erasable marker. Then, she serged the single layer of tricot, cutting at the purple marker line. Of course, we tested tension first, and found that we just could not get a tight enough stitch in the light weight tricot. An older 4-H’er, who is headed to fashion school this fall, suggested that we sew over a tissue paper stabilizer. It was a good idea, but I was worried about the tissue staying in the serger stitches. I remembered some wash-away stabilizer that I have for my embroidery machine. She put a strip of the stabilizer on top of the tricot and that solved the tension problem! 







Using a double needle to hem the tricot.
She turned under the serged edge and
top-stitched with the double needle
to hem the tricot slip/lining.

After the tricot was serged, she turned under the edge and top stitched the ¼” tricot hem, again with the double needle. The stabilizer was still in there and it helped to make a nice stitch possible. Beautiful! Now she just needs to soak her hem in water for about 15 minutes and all of that stabilizer will disappear—like magic!

Alas, all of that wasn’t magic. It was the result of thinking ahead so that she won’t have to cope with a slip at Fashion Revue and wherever else she wears this special dress. It was the result of solving a problem—not following pattern instructions word for word, but thinking about possible solutions that would be do-able with her skill set and which would not take too much time. It was the result of thinking through the steps of the solution from beginning to end before we even began the sewing.

Our jobs as 4-H sewing leaders are varied, but this creative problem solving is probably one of my favorite parts of the job. I do sometimes worry that I won’t think of everything ahead of time, but I try! The fact that one of my older sew-ers came up with a creative solution shows me that she is learning this, too. That makes me proud.

How have you been thinking ahead for your 4-H'ers?  Are they thinking ahead for themselves?  Please share with the rest of us!

Happy sewing--and don't forget the Fashion Revue registration deadline for your region!