Working with Guidworks

We share our work space with Mar Ricketts of Guildworks, an architectural fabric and kite company. We met in early spring via Craigslist, where Mar was searching for someone to share his space with. We got along well and he was really interested in having us here because of our sewing skills and his occasional need for a sub contractor.

Mar does the huge fabric installations that you see at festivals like Rothbury, Pick-a-Thon and Beloved as well as installations at businesses around town. The first project we picked up for him was a day light reflector for a sky light in the music room at the Da Vinci Arts Middle School, which built an eco classroom you can read about in the New York Times.

The music room is part of a program at the University of Oregon that studies energy efficiency in buildings. You can read about the design of the daylight reflector on their website, this is the picture of the first one they tested:

This is the sectional view of the one I worked on, the reflector is the trapezoid suspended in the center below the skylight:

 

 The reflector is made out of panels of Gore Tenara an architectural fabric that is durable, UV resistant and recyclable!

Paul's custom pinstripe bamboo suit

Photo by Sean Morrison

I met Paul and his wife Moira last summer at a music festival outside of Salem, OR. They were visiting one of Paul's childhood friends, a friend of my partner Jim. Paul had recently proposed marriage, and they came out west to make the decision to move from Brooklyn to Portland. Paul told me that he was looking to have a suit custom made for their wedding and was having a hard time finding an eco fabric in charcoal with a narrow pin stripe that he wanted. After months of searching online and in stores I went to Paul and suggested that we consider making our own fabric for the suit; my experience in theater has exposed me to no end of detail work to get just the right fabric and I was sure this was the only option. First we discussed screen printing the stripes and having them bend into geometric patterns, similar to this picture I tore out of a magazine:

After more thought I felt that screen printing may look cheap and have spotty results and decided that sewing the pin stripes would give the most controlled results. Paul had a graphic designer friend of his work up some sample stripe patterns that we picked a few from and I made some samples of the patterns. We had multiple fittings for the muslin of the suit and did more rounds of samples, fine tuning the size of the stripe as well as the the thread color and placement of the accent colors in the stripes, this is our final sample:

All in all the suit is a great success and a continuation of the best work I have done to date.

Sarah's Techno Wedding Dress

It really is true that time flies when you're having fun! The summer has been a whirl-wind of weddings, sewing projects, construction and gardening. Some fantastic projects have wrapped up and here are some pictures and a video from the first wedding of the summer, Jeff and Sarah O'Donnell.

If you want to know what it's like to have a a dress custom made for you, this is the post to read!


Sarah's techno wedding dress, walking down the isle with her dad in a stunning rooftop ceremony over Puget Sound in downtown Seattle.

"The dress is amazingly perfect! I could have never envisioned such a beautiful finished piece. You are my fairy godmother of wedding dress wishes! Your unbelievable talent, great taste, fantastic work ethic is going to take this world by storm."

Sarah Jones
www.productionbysarah.com

Sarah had tried on dresses for over a year before contacting me about making a custom gown. We got together, looked at pictures and talked about what she was looking for. She put together a great presentation showing the full range of what she wanted both for the dress and the ceremony, which you can find here. You can also check out sketches and swatches from previous entries on my blog. It was important to Sarah that the dress be modern, sexy and bridal without being overwhelming or heavy. In addition the grooms mother is a dress maker and it was important to both of us that she appreciate and respect the gown.

We went through a few rounds of sketches while drafting and fitting her moulage. Because the dress had so much detail in the patterns and a lot of little pieces cut on "random" grain lines I made two muslin mock ups of the pattern before cutting into the fashion fabric. This allowed me to make subtle adjustments to the style lines and shaping of the bodice that I knew I had to nail down in advance. You can see the first fitting in the fashion fabric here.

And finally, a video tribute to the dress!


Such a beautiful and fun wedding!