Hello world!

Ah the obligatory “hello my name is” post. Here goes. *aaaahem*

 My online name is Dravon (pronounced ‘dragon’ but with a v instead of a g) and I created this blog to encourage myself to continue improving my sewing and garment making skills. Long ago I had a LiveJournal account and within that forum I created what I called a “Garment Post-Mortem” for each item which I made.

 The purpose of the Post-Mortem was for me to catalog all the successes and failures, as well as to make notes on ways to improve. I would have been grateful for any feedback which furthered the goal of continued improvement and/or encouragement to keep learning and sharing. I fell out of the habit of making those post-mortems and so find myself going round in circles repeating the same errors, or (worse still) not being inspired to try. It was also such a sense of accomplishment to look back at my list of post-mortems and recognize that each of them was a completed project.

In addition to being a sewing enthusiast, I also teach sewing classes. I work in a store called The Sewing Café in central California, and my job is not only to sell machines but also teach folks how to use their machines to sew whatever inspires them. I teach most all of the machine mastery classes, and we sell Husqvarna Viking, Pfaff, Bernina and Baby Lock brand machines. In the year I’ve been working there, I have learned so frickin’ much!!! I also teach folks how to use their basic mechanical machines, since Walmart sure as heck doesn’t do that. But in addition to how to use the various machines in all their intricate glory, I also teach sewing classes.

I have a class I call “Sew Start! Beginning Sewing” and this is a project based class in which the students make something specific. We’ve made pillow cases, scrunchies, lunch bags, zippered pouches, ruffled pillow shams, pajama pants and tons of other things. The class is open to all ages and I’ve students from 7 all the way to 70. Part of this series is a lecture class I call Sewing 101 in which I teach things like fabric anatomy, types of fabric, what thread to use with what, what needle to use on what fabric, and pretty much everything I wish I’d known before I being in the field for a decade! Heh. There’s also the “Sewing with Dravon” intermediate sewing class, in which the student brings in whatever they want help with. I LOVE this class because people bring me all kinds of fun things. I’ve helped folks figure out specific specialty feet for the machine, trouble shoot machine embroidery projects, customize patterns, and all manner of things.

How did I get into sewing? It’s amazing many people ask me that, especially right before a class is about to start. My family has a long tradition of sewing, with my great-grandmother’s quilting being the most highly developed skill. I started cross-stitching at about 7, and sewing at about 10. I took my high school home ec, but it was disappointingly short and the teacher was not especially inspiring. She loved to cook, and so tolerated teaching the sewing so that we could get to the cooking part. hehe. Finally, a few years ago I found out that a local community college offered an AA in Fashion Design. Not really wanting another degree, I took all the classes from that curriculum that I wanted to: every single construction, draping, pattern making and tailoring class that they offered.

And so, here I am. I’ve made a series of vests for my husband and I’ve learned some things about the interfacing that I want to record, and I have this damn recurring problem that I can’t seem to fix. I think these vests will be my first composite Post-Mortem.