Better Dressmaking

Better Dressmaking

Learn tips and techniques to make your home sewing look less – well- ‘homemade’

Wednesday 7 – Friday 9 August 2024   10am – 5pm each day

Better Dressmaking Course Description

Do your seams look wrinkled or puckered? Do your facings refuse to lie flat, and are you tired of wonky zips – or do you even avoid zips altogether? Yes? – Then this is the course to help you raise your sewing game.

I’ve observed a few areas where many home dressmakers are let down, and rolled them all up into my popular 1-day class ‘Improve your dressmaking’. But the Summer school ‘Better Dressmaking’ is a 3-day extended version of that. It will teach you loads more tips and tricks to improve the fit and finish of your home dressmaking projects and avoid that ‘homemade’ look that is the downfall of many sewing projects.

Through a series of tutorials, and practical sessions, you’ll be working samples of each technique, so you can practise the skills learnt in that session.  We’ll start with getting the groundwork right. How to choose the best size of pattern, and making some common adjustments for a perfect fit. Then I’ll teach you the lingo of pattern terminology. I’ll show you how to improve the appearance of your seams with pressing and trimming, and adding the WOW factor with perfectly straight and even topstitching. Darts, interfacing, buttonholes, zips, sleeves and waistbands are covered too. Each session expands on the skills learnt in the previous one, building your knowledge and technical ability over the three days (18 hours in total).  By the end of the course, you’ll have a library of new techniques at your fingertips to take home so your sewing will be more ‘high end’ than ‘high street’.  There’s a few ‘pattern hacks’ too; how to change a neckline shape, add a pocket, swap a waistband for a facing, and add lining to a skirt even if it’s not mentioned in the pattern.

I’ve been sewing since I was a child (and that’s a lot of years’ experience!). During that time, I’ve made every mistake in the book and learnt how to avoid them. Now you can benefit from my mistakes and learn to sew like a pro as I share my expert tips. I wish I’d known all this stuff when I started to sew.

Artisan Stitch won a Certificate of Excellence in January 2019 and is rated ‘Best sewing classes in Edinburgh’. They won a UK Enterprise award for Best Sewing classes 2020. Two more awards followed in 2021, ‘Best Private Sewing Education Tuition, and Most Outstanding Sewing Classes. The most recent is Best Craft Tuition Provider in the Scotland Prestige Awards 2023/24.

Please check here before booking as once purchased, tickets are non-refundable.

Who is this aimed at?

• Novice dressmakers who’d like to further their skills
• Home dressmakers who’d like to achieve a better fit and finish to their home sewing projects
• You must have confident machine skills, had some dressmaking experience and be familiar with using commercial paper patterns and basic garment construction

What will I learn?

• How to choose the best size(s) of pattern to achieve a good fit
• Understanding pattern terminology
• How to do some common pattern alterations
• Learn different seam types and when to use them
• How to take up hems
• Neatening and finishing techniques
• Edge stitching and top stitching to add impact
• Perfect darts
• Make machined buttonholes and sew on buttons
• How to sew in a concealed zip
• Avoid stretched necklines
• Choosing and using interfacing
• How to make facings lie flat
• Setting in a sleeve
• There will also be time for a question and answer session so if there’s anything you’d like to know that isn’t covered above, then please let me know and I’ll try to include it if there’s time.

Course arrangements

The classes run from 10am to 5pm each day.  There will be a break for lunch, and opportunities for short breaks throughout the day.

Sewing machines are provided or you can bring your own if you have one. Please remember your power cable/foot control, spare needles, feet, instruction manual

You will need to bring:

• 1m of light-mediumweight calico (180gsm) 150cm (60″) wide
• 30cm lightweight fusible interfacing
• your basic sewing kit of: fabric shears, paper scissors and small trimming/embroidery scissors, pins, tape measure (cm), chalk pencils or fabric marking pens, notebook.
• pattern-making tools:  Dressmakers curved ruler, mechanical pencil, rubber, small glue stick, 3 different colours of coloured pencils

Travel, meals and accommodation are not included.

Useful links:

If you need a new sewing machine or any sewing equipment or accessories, then my trusted and recommended specialist retailer is Pembertons.

One of the topics I’ll cover in the course is sewing machine tension, but here’s a wee note that you might like to read beforehand.