Ann's Pearls and how this thread will work

[Lisa]

Some of you will have seen my posts admiring Ann Rowley's work for a while now "have you seen her labels? and the delicate white on white embroidery on a blouse?" her "experiments with serger techniques in lieu-of pin-tucks?  Sorry if this sounds like a "rave", but I am impressed!  Ann modestly noted that:

All I can say about my work is that I've been sewing for a very long time and have always tried to maintain my standards of workmanship.

She was "trained as a couture dressmaker way back in the fifties and love to see that so many of [us] are keeping up these skills."  When I first saw that I knew I was seeing something special, and I've been watching her posts ever since!  Ann currently uses a Pfaff 2140 (updated to 2170 with the latest software), and while that's an amazing machine it's what Ann does with it which is really amazing. 

Does [such a machine] make an amazing difference?  Well - some things are easier and some extras have been added, but basically you just have to accept that there is pretty steep learning curve involved [with her Pfaff]; and it's this that I love - the challenges involved.

But her machine doesn't offer us an excuse for not achieving her results!

Although all the bells and whistles that these machines provide are exciting extras no one needs them to produce top class workmanship. I learned my trade on a treadle Singer and could still do all my dressmaking on one - although I'd prefer not to!
No labels or embroidery of course, and it's this icing on the cake that makes it all so exciting.

 
Unfortunately that's a matter of disparity in skills...   Ann has been extraordinarily generous in sharing with us.  But some of these "pearls" have been getting lost on the various threads, and this one will be a place for those to be collected (I'll copy and move them here as I find them).  But in addition, Ann has agreed to add to this thread and (potentially) respond to requests. 

So that this thread stays easy to use, it's going to be "locked"...but there is a companion thread called Questions for Ann!--for discussions or questions.  The best of those will be consolidated or addressed here!    

Enjoy!  I certainly will...

Lisa

[AnnRowley]

Lisa, you've obviously remembered my posts better than me! Seriously though I'm both flattered and delighted to be given this thread.

One of the things I'm passionate about is craft skills; so many wonderful skills are being lost because of commercial imperatives; a machine costs so much less than a man. So anything that I can do to pass on my own skills and encourage others to acquire them is great.

What I can't do is help those who want to make a jacket-in-a-day or pants-in-an-hour, my background is labour-intensive couture and this is just not the sort of sewing I do. Absolutely nothing wrong with it, just not me.

Because I've been sewing for so long I'm afraid I take a lot of what I do for granted, forgetting that all sorts of stuff may be new to people. I'm often amused by the "tips" in sewing articles - thinking "but that's what everyone does" when they obviously don't.

I try to keep my skills up to date and certainly don't stick to couture methods.

Lisa has said she will copy anything that she thinks relevant to this thread, but please feel free to ask specific questions and I'll do my best to come up with an answer.

[AnnRowley]

I've been giving some thought to the best way to run this area of the list.

The idea, as I see it, is that it should be a point of reference where the "how to" articles are gathered together so that they can be referred to more easily, as well as somewhere where specific queries can be addressed.
There is a wealth of talent on this list and this is absolutely not a one -man -band.

So what I'm proposing initially is that there should be separate, named threads that can be easily identified when this "Child Board" is opened. ( You will see that I have opened one on Underlining with silk organza, with an article by Amy)

I think that initially questions should be posted in the "Ask Ann" thread. If it's a simple reply that I feel may not be of general interest then I'll deal with it there.
If it's something more complex, perhaps needing photos to illustrate it then it could have its own thread.

I'll throw open questions which are outside my area of expertise for others to answer.

And I'll copy posts of general interest here under their own heading so that they can be found easily.

I'd welcome comments on this - it's all rather experimental at this stage and I'm sure it will evolve over time.

Although the introduction is locked the other topics aren't - this means anyone can post to them and ask for clarification. I welcome this as I'm sure there will be points that haven't been dealt with in the original post.

And one more thing - I, and my spell checker, write British English but I'm sure you'll all be able to translate!