Beginnings are always exciting. At FIT, beginnings are creative as well. The opportunity to learn with real professors and talk with talented students that are as old as you are is simply brilliant.

FIT is a place where you can get inspiration from literally everything. It’s a nice way to explore your interests and get more involved with your chosen profession. Because of this I chose to wear my new spiky boots. I live very close to FIT, only about 45 minutes away by car, so we accidentally arrived an hour early. Even so, I was far from the first student there.

three of the four things we will be making.

The classroom was filled with industrial sewing machines and irons. Pretty soon the professor started the class. We talked about ourselves, and she talked about safety rules. Most of the students already went to an artistic high school and those who went to normal school took art classes. It was interesting hearing them talk about their personal reasons for learning how to sew and how it worked with their specified interests.The professor showed us how to work the machines and told us to sew some

the view from my first class

straight lines on a piece of paper. We didn’t use thread so we all ended up with little holes in the paper. This let us get the hang of working with such a fast machine. I’m pretty good with basic straight stitches, but these machines were huge. After we all got the hang of the machines she taught us how to thread them. This was particularly hard as there were so many loops and holes your thread had to go through. Next she taught us how to block small pieces of muslin, which she then made us sew straight stitches on. Once you had filled your entire pieces of muslin with straight stitches you could move on the triangles. She showed us how to do these and it was pretty easy. I finished my triangles early so I moved onto tucks. I love using this technique on clothes so I finished them pretty fast. Then she called for clean up.

display of Halloween looks.

I had an hour for lunch and then my draping class. Quite of few of the students in my sewing class were also in my draping class, so the introductions at the beginning of class were easier. The professor talked about the basics of draping and safety, then told us how

my draping classroom

to choose a dress from. After we all had dress forms she showed us how to measure them accurately. We then blocked and ironed large pieces of muslin. We will be using these pieces to drape a skirt. we then did extensive measuring and quit a lot of math. this involved adding 3/8ths to everything and a six inch extra to the overall measurements.  we then drew all of our measurements onto our fabrics, checked to make sure it was right, and cleaned up.

But that took us quite some time so we will be draping next week. I’m very excited to be learning new things about construction. I am always pleased with my designs, it’s just making them real that has given me trouble. So I am hoping that come next fall, my design and construction skills will both be even.

Overall, FIT has once again taught me stuff I didn’t think I’d be learning, inspired me for things I didn’t think I had an interest in, and made me feel at home. I’m excited to learn more, especially about things I didn’t know I wanted to learn. What would you like to learn that you’ve never really spent time on?

Sissi