Simple Simon and Company

Uncategorized

What I Wish I’d Known When I Started Sewing: Melissa from the Polka Dot Chair

Today we have an extra special guest as a part of our "What I Wish I'd Known When I Started Sewing Series".  It's our friend Melissa from the Polka Dot Chair.  We've been lucky enough to spend a lot of time with Melissa...talking, eating, sewing...all even though we live hundreds of miles apart.  She is warm, fun, and the kind of person that you not only want to be friends with...but to sew with as well!  So we are so very happy to have her here today sharing some of her sewing advice with us.  ... View the Post

Techniques

Zipper 101

Did you all have a good weekend?  I hope so.  Liz and I are both home again and happy to be back to a bit of normalcy.  We were both laughing about how we have never had so many days in a row of wearing "real clothes" and not our usual mom uniforms of yoga pants, jeans and tees or sweaters.  We do have a few more stories to tell you about our conference over last weekend...and some things we learned, but I feel like I am still processing a lot of it.  But I promise we will share soon! And now ... View the Post

General· Uncategorized

Some People Go To ALT to Network…Some People Go To ALT to Sew Men’s Stretchy Pants…We Are of the Pants Persuasion

Let me explain.... No wait. It's too weird...and it doesn't make any sense. Let's just do this:  I am going to tell you a story.  A true story.  A strange story that involves swants, gold spandex, faux fox fur, Instagram, a guy named Stone, and of course Elizabeth and I.  And hopefully you know us well enough by now that when I say Elizabeth and I and a story you understand that of course its going to be strange and you won't find any amount of gold spandex and faux fur unnatural. Now, with ... View the Post

Learn to Sew· Tutorials

How to Sew a Dart

Sewing darts is another one of those things in sewing that seemed so complicated and hard when I first started sewing.   But as time went on and I got braver....I finally tackled darts.  And again, I wondered why I was so nervous.  But I guess seeing all of those markings on patterns, I was more than a little intimidated. There are lots of kinds of darts.  The picture below shows a pattern with one dart, but there can also be bust darts, curved darts, or even double darts (that look like a ... View the Post

Techniques· Tutorials

How to Sew a Buttonhole (and let your machine do all the work!)

Today we are talking buttonholes...and I know, I really do know.  Some of you are still afraid of them.  I was.  I would *conveniently* ask my Home Ec. teacher to "show" me how to do a buttonhole over and over and she would end up "showing" me but doing the whole thing for me.  It was my trick for years.  And then later it was my mom...until one day, I said that it was time to learn the buttonhole.  That was years ago and now I laugh at how scared I was of something....but it seemed so ... View the Post