February 2020 Quarterly with Kirsten Wolff

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8
10 AM – Noon  Get Off on the Right Foot

Did you ever wonder how to use those mysterious feet and attachments for your serger? Join us to find out! In a lecture and slide presentation Kirsten will show you step-by-step how to use a selection of special feet. She will start with serger feet and attachments, then look at coverstitch feet.

Whether you have a standard serger, a coverstitch machine, or a combination model, you’re sure to learn something new about available feet and how they work.

You don’t need to have any of these specialty feet to attend, just bring a notebook and your imagination. This lecture will get your feet in the door!


NOON – 1 PM  Bring your own lunch

1 – 4 PM  Serger: Beyond the Basics

Bring your serger for this hands-on class that takes you through a range of techniques and tips that will get you more comfortable with your machine. Bring all the manuals and accessories that came with your machine because you’ll be changing settings, moving needles, and tinkering. You just don’t know what you’ll need, so bring it all!

You’ll learn a variety of techniques you may use often and then some variations on familiar themes. You will practice each of these techniques and build a reference collection complete with notes and details for your specific machine.

Printed sample pages will be provided along with pre-cut fabric kits for class. Feel free to bring some of your own fabrics if you need more practice on a particular technique. Just be sure fabrics are solid light colors so you can see the stitching clearly. You will also need your standard sewing kit items. Also, a loop turner or a blunt darning needle are optional but recommended. Bring or pre-thread your serger with 4 different thread colors – red, blue, yellow, and green – so the individual thread positions can easily be identified on the finished samples.

Workshop FEE: $45 ASG / $65 Non-ASG (Includes workshop and kit fee.)

 


“It was life or death. I was four, Mom was sewing, and I was an endless river of questions. It was either put me on her lap and show me, or else murder me and hide the body. Wisely, she put me on her lap.” So Portland girl Kirsten Sydney Wolff recounts her introduction to sewing. Things spooled out from there quickly into a lifetime of learning.

“We were very poor. We didn’t buy, we made—skirts, dresses, pants. Boy stuff, girl stuff. You name it.” Such economies made her fluent in patterns by 12.

At 19 she was hired to do testing for a clothing manufacturer. “Give me a swatch and a match and I can still tell you what it is by the flame and the ash,” she admits proudly. Such industry taught her fabrics—molecularly—by 20.

By 30, she paid her college tuition by designing and sewing wedding dresses for Beverly Hills brides. Such enterprises taught her fashion. “Chanel yes, Versace wow, but me—I still lose my head over Edith Head,” she confides.

By 40, though she retired from couture for high end retail, she still found time to become a Palmer/Pletsch certified sewing instructor… And a Palmer/Pletsch certified fit instructor… And a Palmer/Pletsch certified serger instructor.

At the moment, after living in Rome, New York and Los Angeles, she finds herself happily back in her native Portland, but now with a husband, two cats and 32 vintage sewing machines.

When not teaching, she is currently a busy real estate broker with a problem: “When I say, and this is where your guest room goes, I really, really want to say—and this is where your sewing studio goes!”