Readers,
That humming sound you hear is coming from my head, which is still spinning from spending last weekend at Janie’s Sewing Corner in Cleveland, Ohio.
That’s where I joined 31 fellow sewers to see Threads magazine contributing editor, adjunct professor at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, and self-described “couturier to the stars” Kenneth D. King demonstrate tailoring and couture techniques for about 11 packed hours spread over two days.
The class description on Janie’s website read, “Kenneth will teach a workshop on tailoring details, focusing on old-school techniques the first day and more modern techniques the second day.”
Actually, Kenneth led off on Day 1 with his “new school” tailoring innovations–not that it mattered, since nearly all of us had signed up for both days.
I had e-mailed Kenneth earlier in the week:
“Hello Kenneth,
I thought I would drop you a line to say how much I look forward to meeting you Saturday and Sunday at Janie’s Sewing Corner.I also wanted to tell you that I bought Smart Tailoring the day it was announced on the Taunton website and made a jacket following your “old school” methods. I was going to follow up with a “new school” jacket but remained confused about the collar-lapel pattern adaptation, so I will learn from you this weekend and then produce a “new school” jacket—the first of many, I think.
I documented the process of making my jacket using Smart Tailoring on my blog, Getting Things Sewn. In this post, https://gettingthingssewn.com/tailoring-with-kenneth-king/ I explain why I took on this project.
Sewing is not easy for me, but I’m capable of good work, especially with expert help. I look forward to getting my questions answered this weekend!
Thank you, Kenneth,
Paula DeGrand”
Minutes later Kenneth replied:
Hello, Paula,
Be sure to bring your pattern, and I’ll show how to adapt the under collar to the body for everyone else to learn….
See you this weekend!
Kenneth
Yippee!
So in class I was prepared when Kenneth asked me to retrieve the pattern pieces for the under collar and front of the pattern I was trying to adapt for a “new school” jacket. He pinned the front to his flip chart, and then pinned on the under collar at the notch on the neckline. He pinned the collar to the chart at a second point, showing a gap between the two pattern pieces.
I was watching intently and scribbling notes at the same time and didn’t even think to take a picture. Here are my notes, in their entirety:
Okay: “gap…curve…take out there…add back here…make a muslin…my jacket does have a peaked lapel…this adaptation does work for peaked lapels…” I have fragments here, but not a clear picture.
I don’t write fast enough, and I barely grasp patternmaking principles, which are both big impediments in a fast-paced sewing class.
In short, it is still a mystery to me how to combine the under collar and the front into a single pattern piece to simplify making a notched collar. How to “finesse some of that gap” remains beyond my grasp. I doubt a photo of the flip chart would have provided the solution to my puzzlement. I needed one-on-one instruction, and that wasn’t going to happen with 31 classmates that day.
When I do adapt my pattern at last, I’ll post a step-by-step process. Promise!
(See my previous three posts to read about attempting to adapt my pattern.)
On both days Kenneth taught at a steady, swift pace, frequently checking our faces for comprehension. One time I must have been staring back blankly, because he asked again if I was following him, and I said “I’ll have to practice to lock in the knowledge.” It was an honest answer, and it seemed to satisfy him.
When I looked at my notes I was astonished at all the ground Kenneth covered. For example:
- How to make a muslin framework to suspend canvas inside a jacket front, providing support but avoiding bulky seams
- How to tape a roll line and machine-stitch it in place through the canvas and fashion fabric
The stay tape is stitched in place through the canvas and fashion fabric along the roll line. - How to steam, press, and baste in the turn of cloth in a lapel
- How to stitch a notched collar with a minimum of bulk, avoiding the usual “train wreck” of seams meeting in one place
A notched collar “new school” style. - How to make mitered cuffs
- How to make a “hidden pocket” in a jacket front lining
- How to remove bulk from a pocket flap pattern piece by cleverly relocating the seams
The “origami” pocket flap means no bulk at the edges because the seam allowances have been shifted out of sight. This is the back. 
This is the front of the flap. The edges are free of bulk. - How to make a bulk-free seams and welt pockets in nonravelly materials like felt or leather
Sketching a pocket for nonravelly materials like felt and leather. 
The pocket in felt. Nice. 
The pocket bag of the felt pocket. - When a three-piece sleeve is better than a two-piece
- How to draft a notched lapel from a shawl lapel
- How to reason out the proportions of a garment in a fashion illustration or photograph from knowing the average neck-to-shoulder seam measurement and knowing that the elbow bends at the natural waist.
- How to make a surgeon’s style jacket cuff with working buttonholes
Surgeon’s cuff, with working buttonholes. 
The surgeon’s cuff, neatly finished inside. - How to make bound buttonholes and welt pockets of consistent dimensions and quality
Kenneth demonstrated bound buttonholes and neatly finishing the facing. That’s silk organza. - How to smoothly install an invisible zipper
- How to make fell stitches, tailor bastes, and pad stitches
- How to stay curves even before cutting out the pattern piece
- Why cut some seam allowances 1 inch wide and how to press out the ripples along the edges
- How to make a Hong Kong finish the couture way
Both days Kenneth produced samples from scratch or finished ones he’d started and then passed them around for us to scrutinize and photograph.
He brought several jackets, familiar to users of his DVDs, books, and Threads articles, that we could look at inside and out.
His tool bag lay open on the table. It was fun to see the tools he had amassed or created over the years and how he used them.
I’d never heard of a Florian pinker. “Pinking shears tend to chew some fabrics,” Kenneth said, as many of us nodded in agreement. When I saw how neatly this gadget trimmed edges, I wanted one for myself.
“I’m all about having the right tool for the job,” Kenneth told us, and sometimes that means adapting a tool to improve it. He did not hesitate or apologize when removing a spring mechanism from a zipper foot, pronouncing it useless, and dropping it with a “plunk!” into the wastebasket.
We got more advice on equipment, tools, and supplies:
- Don’t use a Teflon ironing board cover, which repels moisture rather than allowing steam to move through a garment
- Collect and use good pieces of pressing equipment–tailors’ hams, a point presser, a clapper, sleeve rolls, a sleeve board
- Get a really good iron. (Kenneth has a Reliable i600, which has amazing steam–and runs up an equally amazing electric bill.)
- Have at least one pair of Gingher tailors’ scissors, and ship them back to Gingher to be sharpened.
- A vacuum table? “Not really. Good for a dry cleaner. Too much for me.”
- Use a trimmed shaving brush to remove chalk markings.
- Iron thread for hand sewing, and it won’t twist
- “Don’t cheap out on needles.”
Then there was the quotable Kenneth:
- “I wasn’t formally trained except for patternmaking.”
- “Know the rules.”
- “Know when to break the rules.”
- “I’m not wild about wearable art.” In couture, the wearer is more important than the garment; with wearable art the garment is more important than the wearer, he said.
- “I believe in spending the time you need to get a beautiful result.”
- “I’m lazy–I don’t want to do any more than I have to.”
- “You need to put your time in where it shows.”
- I’m very much about repeatable and reliable.”
- “I’m known for handouts at FIT.” (And at Janie’s, too: We all got to take home a CD of Kenneth’s ten handouts for the classes.)
Drafting a notched-collar jacket from a shawl collar pattern. Kenneth makes it look easy. - “When it’s all said and done, if it gives you a good result, it’s correct.”
- “There’s this whole thing on directional sewing…” Kenneth disagrees: “I have a life…”
- “A lot of Bemberg lining you can read a newspaper through, and I hate that.”
- A tedious or time-consuming task is “a nosebleed.”
- “I tell my students, ‘I started when I was 4; I’m 57–do the math.”
- Sewing purists who endlessly debate fine points are “clutching their pearls” or “wrapped around the axle.”
- Quoting Fred Astaire: “If you make the same mistake long enough, they assume it’s your style.”
Miscellaneous facts:
- Kenneth takes his own photos for his Threads articles.
- His next DVD in Threads’ “Smart” series will be about sewing fake fur.
- He loves Fortuny fabric. (Shocking, I know.)
- He takes a dim view of mimes.
Kenneth’s recommendations:
- Better Dressmaking by Ruth Wyeth Spears is “one of those good all-around books from the forties.”
- Check out the great content on Threads Insider, where Kenneth’s beautiful “bark coat” can be seen.
- Support your local independent fabric store, which can provide supplies and services that the big chains can’t or won’t.
- If you have a chance to take a class from Lynda Maynard, do it.
It’s been six days now since Tailoring Details with Kenneth King ended, and I’ve been thinking about what I got out of it.
- I got to meet and listen to a master. I find being around any kind of mastery has a good effect on me.
- I saw with my own eyes techniques demonstrated with successful results. (I am a little bit skeptical of most sewing directions–and directions in general.) I’m much more likely to try these techniques now.
- I made, or renewed, the acquaintance of fellow sewers.
- I bought myself an impressively large sleeve board.
It would be a shame, though, not to invest a little more effort to yield richer, longer-lasting rewards. Like:
- Researching irons and buying a much better one
- Making or buying the right ironing board cover
- Seeing how far I could get following Kenneth’s handouts for his FIT students
- Trying Kenneth’s bound buttonhole method
- Trying his “origami” pocket flap, not only to reduce bulk but as a pattern-drafting exercise
- Using my Threads and Threads Insider subscriptions more, and more strategically
And, most of all,
- Continuing to amass experience and knowledge making jackets and coats.
Although I brought my “old school” jacket to class to show Kenneth and to ask questions about it, I may have given him a mistaken impression. If I had listed my specific questions in that e-mail earlier in the week, Kenneth probably would have woven those topics into his talk.
Instead, my jacket waited in the wings and never got onstage. And when we wrapped up Sunday afternoon and Kenneth had a plane to catch, I thought it would be insensitive as well as untimely to press him for advice about–pressing, among other things.
But you know what? I’ll just look at my jacket again on my own and figure out what to do next.
[…] what advice sewers least like hearing, what would you say? My answer would be, in the words of Kenneth King, author of Smart Fitting […]