Pamela's Patterns: A T-Shirt Workshop
Sunday, June 5, 2011 at 2:46PM 
I waited until today to post my weekly garment as I wanted to write about a great workshop that I took yesterday and about the top I created. My local American Sewing Guild Chapter sponsored Pamela Leggett from Pamela’s Patterns to come and teach a t-shirt fitting workshop. The event started on Friday night with a trunk show where Pamela shared her garments along with lots of useful tips about garment fit and construction. The next morning about 20 of us gathered, and Pamela walked us through the measuring, layout and construction of our own t-shirts. Most of Pamela’s designs are exactly the kind of clothes that I wear and like to sew: simple, stylish, easy to sew, well fitting and comfortable. She works with a lot of knits and has patterns for tops, jackets and skirts. What makes her patterns unique is that she incorporates a lot of the common pattern alterations required by women (forward shoulder and rounded back, shorter shoulder seam length and others) and provides easy to understand instructions for making other necessary changes for a custom fit. The 20 women present represented a pretty wide range of figure sizes and shapes, yet each of us was able to leave the workshop with a finished (or nearly finished) t-shirt that fit us much better than any ready-to-wear garment and for many, a better fit than we’ve been able to accomplish with commercial patterns. Here’s my plan: using some of the huge volume of knits in my stash, cut out about six t-shirts with various necklines and sleeve finishes and have them ready to sew when time allows. I’m willing to bet I can sew one of these in less than an hour if it is cut out and ready to go.
Here’s a picture of my final t-shirt. It fits great and is comfortable and stylish.
The rest of these pictures are shots of some of Pamela’s garments and her products. She was a great teacher and has a true talent for drafting great patterns. I can’t wait to try her pencil skirts. I had a super time yesterday, the best part of it being time to see my fabulous sewing friends and spend a whole day together doing what we like best. When you are done reading this post hop on over to my friend Jane's blog to read another one on this workshop (and you will see why Jane and I get along so well.)
Fabrics, waiting to become t-shirts
A Rack of Pamela's Garments
The Perfect Tank Top
Pencil Skirt from stretch lace
Bias skirt made from a vintage tablecloth
Pamela with a selection of her garments
Patterns
Reader Comments (3)
Julie,
At the beginning of April, Pamela spent about 10 days in Florida going from ASG chapter to ASG chapter . We had her for The Perfect T-Shirt for two glorious days. (20 members each day... almost 1/3 of our chapter which was excellent attendance.) She went to The Villages, Tampa...and I don't know where else. She had good comments from all of the locations. We want her back!
Your top looks lovely and I know you will be knocking out a bunch of them. Pamela made the process so easy even our non-garment sewers admitted they enjoyed Pamela and her program.
Rose Marie
No matter how luscious your curves are it might not be appropriate for the occasion. If you're wearing a high waist pencil skirt or a skirt with a thick waistband, then you should tuck it in as it complements the look a lot better than wearing it untucked.
It's nice to join in a workshop. You get lots of ideas that you can able to do a project in which you can get money.