Cleaning the Designing Stylus

Designing Stylus smudges & graphite removal!

How to clean your Designing Stylus?  That's the topic of this blog.  I know I suggest that you use a regular pencil for drawing all your SFD patterns.  And after a time, the graphite from the pencil lead marks and smudges your Stylus.  This happens to everyone's Stylus.

One of our Australian customers asked how to clean it, so I went right to the source...the plastic material supplier.  I used to use regular soap and warm water, which did an adequate job.  But no more.  You want to get one of those Mr. Clean Magic sponges.  In Australia, for all our down-under customers, it's called 'Chux Magic Eraser'.  It's one of those weird little white sponges that has some kind of an cleaner embedded in it.  Wow...does it work well.  Use it dry.

Here's a before and after photo.
BEFORE:

The customer who sent this photo put it next to her Designer's Companion which hadn't been used yet to show the difference in what the pencil graphite did.  I've seen them much smudgier than this after 6 days in a Fitting Retreat.

AFTER Mr. Clean Magic Sponge:

It cleaned up as good as new!  Clean the front side too...it won't take the SFD markings off.

Here's a short little video showing you just how well this works:

This little sponge is also great for cleaning the iron's sole plate after stickies have melted on it.

Make sure to add this inexpensive to your collection of necessities in your sewing room.  You can get these little wonders at stores like Walmart, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Target.

Happy Sewing!

Peplums: Pure & Simple

www.surefitdesigns.blogspot.com

I recently wore this blouse with peplum at a Fit & Sew Retreat.  All the students loved it and so I thought I'd share it with you.

With the dominant pattern, it's a little difficult to see, but it buttons up to the waist level, then releases into the peplum feature.  The bust dart has been transferred up to the shoulder line and then stitched in a release pleat.  You'll find direction to transfer the bust dart on pages 24 & 25 of the Sure-Fit Designs Dress Kit Instruction book.  The 3/4 length sleeve has a little fullness at the hem level and is finished with a narrow band.

The back bodice is pretty simple.  I left the waist-fitting darts out - meaning they are there in the pattern, but not sewn.  The resulting dart width space gave a little bit of fullness/gathering before attaching the peplum.  I also added a narrow bow tie that is inserted into the side seam and then tied at center back.  This is not a feature I'd normally wear, but it worked well with the peplum feature.

The Peplum instructions are found on the 4-pg Fashion Design Sheet that you see in the above photo.

The other designs given in those instructions include garment shirring, inset godets, asymmetrical yoke designing and a tulip-flipped flounce skirt.  You can order the download version of the Fashion Design Sheet from this page.  These digital Fashion Leaflets and other Digital E-goods are also available from the SFD international distributors.

Ah...the neckline...it's the S-Curved neckline that I've used on a couple of blouses.  It's got a feminine curve to it which is drawn by using the mini-Stylus...the Designer's Companion drawing tool.  The directions for this feminine neckline style are found on page 54 of the Dress Kit Instruction Book.

Have fun designing and sewing!
Glenda the Good Stitch

The Circle Skirt

I've been asked by a few customers to give a tutorial on the circular skirt.  And so I'm going to share with you an excellent tutorial by Rhonda Buss of Rhonda's Creative Life.  I simply can't see any point in recreating the wheel when this tutorial is so complete.

First, let's take a look at the differences between the full circle skirt through to the 1/4 circle skirt, which is sourced from Claire at www.sew-incidentally.com.
This is such an excellent visual comparison of the results.


Now to get on with the tutorial, hop on over to Circle Skirt Tutorial by Rhonda Buss. 

Happy Sewing!

Confused? An explanation of Abbreviations

Every now and again customers will email and ask what our Sure-Fit Designs product abbreviations mean.  What do I mean by this?  Well take the Bodice Fitting Course DVD as an example.  We abbreviate that BFC.  Why do we do this?  When we're creating the shopping cart drop-down options, I'm limited to the number of characters I can use in any given description which means I must use abbreviations.

Finally we've had time to prepare the Sure-Fit Designs Abbreviations list.  I've posted this list on www.surefitdesigns.com and hopefully this will clear up any further customer confusion.

I thought you blog readers might like to see this too.  I'll show it to you here, but if you'd like to download it, please Click Here.

Happy Fitting & Sewing,
Glenda...the Good Stitch!