Bonjour aux lecteurs Français

Il parait que j’ai quelques lecteurs Français- et bien, si les choses ne sont pas très claires, dites-le moi et je me tâcherai de faire un peu de traduction. Bonne année!

Progress report

So here is some of the progress so far. As promised, I pulled the pad stitching from half the collar and redid that half by hand; the stand is pretty heavily padded, the fall is more lightly padded and the ends were curled under as I worked to keep the corners tight to the chest. After breaking the collar, there is no noticeable difference in shaping or shape retention, though that may change, particularly afterRead More

A very important distinction as I prepare the armholes

As I was preparing the armholes a contextual distinction came up; there are two sides of the tailoring coin- one is the independent tailor shop, the other the factory. Why is this important? In the context of a tailor shop, which may have only a lockstitch (plain) machine and maybe a serger and blind-stitch machine, there are a great deal of operations which must be done by hand to be done correctly. In a factoryRead More

Happy Holidays!

  I’d like to wish everyone happy holidays, and a healthy and prosperous new year! This period is a little anti-climactic for me- after the rush to get everyone’s suits finished for the holidays, coupled with the Christmas shopping and parties and general craziness, we close for the next ten days and I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m not very good at doing nothing and I’ve gone through my last pile ofRead More

On the subject of Felling

I showed how to spot the different ways of hemming a lining and explained why it would be better to do by hand or by the special felling machine, since allowances inside are felled in place. But what does that really mean? Have you ever got your trousers back from the cleaner and there was a phantom crease near the new crease in your trouser? A result of wear, humidity and the cleaning process, theRead More

A bit of nerves this morning

I don’t usually get nervous while I’m working but I’m drafting a gentleman’s overcoat this morning and he is flying in for a skeleton fitting later this week so I need to rush a little. Lovely pure cashmere from Cerutti- I’ll need about 4 yards at $500 a yard. That’s $2000. Not something one wants to goof up.