July was a very busy month for the Heartland Chapter.  On July 8th we hosted an evening meal at Joyce Hittesdorf’s for many of the ASDP officers and members who were in Indianapolis for the America Sewing Guild Conference.  We all enjoyed a wonderful evening together making some new friends and renewing old acquaintances. Joyce amazingly managed to seat all of us at one gigantic table which allowed that beautiful non-stop sewing chatter the entire evening.

 On July 15th – 16th  Julianne Bramson, co-author of “Bias Cut Blueprints”  taught her hands-on two day class to 14 very eager students. We were able to use the machines and wonderful facilities at the Art Institute of Indianapolis for the class.  Julianne shared the “magic” of the bias cut garments.  This is a geometric method for clothing design and construction.  She patiently showed us step-by-step how these basic bias tubes could be used in many different ways to construct very different garments.  Amazingly, they are sewn on the straight of grain, hang on the perfect bias and actually fit thanks to a simple chart!  It gave us all a whole new way to think, plan and create new designs without patterns. 

Many more ideas were presented in her extensive collection of sample garments that we were able to examine and try on.  We had a fun two days working together and learning about the bias cut with Julianne. Those attending were Tina Colombo, Sarah Knochel, Donna Christian, Joyce Hittesdorf, Cathy Runion, Whitney Luckinbill, Cisa Kubley and Ellen Blacketer from our chapter. Our guest students were Karen Ahrens and Pat Acklie-Ortiz from Nebraska, Amanda Madden from New York, Wendy Cettina and Gail McLaughlin from New Jersey and Robin Kunzer from Illinois. 

Each day we enjoyed eating lunch out together and Whitney invited everyone to her home on Friday evening for a meal and more fellowship.  Thank you to Julianne for challenging us and teaching us new techniques!

We have the rest of our year’s meetings planned including a day trip in December to South Bend, IN to see the Downton Abby Exhibit, a tour of the South Bend Chocolate Factory (we will figure a way to tie this into sewing some way) and fabric shop in Shipshewana.

Our sewing retreat last year was a great success and we have planned another weekend retreat for late January 2017.

Written by Ellen  Blacketer