← Threads Magazine Podcast: "Sewing With Threads"
Threads Magazine Podcast: "Sewing With Threads"
Amsterdam Tour Recap, London Game Plan | Episode 85
00:28:15
Threads plans a tour to London in May 2025, after last year's trip to Amsterdam and surrounding areas. Threads Editor Carol J. Fresia shares what made the Netherlands tour a success and what to expect when in London. Visit our website: ...
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- [00:00]
Rena O
Join us on an exclusive trip to London in May 2025. Highlights of this tour are a glovemaking masterclass with luxury designer Rena O, an embroidery workshop at Hand and Lock, a visit to a renowned theatrical costume house, and a guided tour of Savile Row. We'll also visit specialty fabric shops and enjoy afternoon tea at Fortnum and Mason. To find out more, go to threadsmagazine.com.
- [00:34]
Jeanine Clagg
Hello and welcome to Sewing with Threads, the monthly podcast with the folks at Threads magazine. I'm Jeanine Clagg and I am joined by my colleague, Threads editor Carol Frase. Hey Carol.
- [00:45]
Carol Frase
Hi Janine. It's good to see your face and hear your voice.
- [00:48]
Jeanine Clagg
Oh, likewise. Hey Carol, Today I'd like to catch up with you about the tour you led to the Netherlands recently. That's the first ever Threads organized tour. And I'd like to talk about the other planned one to the United Kingdom, specifically to London in May 2025. But I want to ask you, I've been hearing all these little bits and pieces from you about this tour that you took in October to the Netherlands, October 2024, that is. But maybe you can fill in a little more of how it went. It sounds like all the folks who joined the trip had a blast.
- [01:26]
Carol Frase
Well, I really hope they did. I certainly did. And I have to say, it was amazing to meet them. There were 18 of them and they were incredible. It's just, you know, we don't get out that much anymore since the pandemic. We don't travel a lot and see our readers and people who are interested in sewing as much as we are. So being around 18 people all day who love fabric shopping, liked fashion, were just creative souls, just deep down was so exciting and really kind of sort of filled my tank a little bit. And I really appreciated that. And if they're listening, I want to tell them thank you for that. I really appreciated it. The main part of this tour was a three day workshop that we had with Saskia Torbella. And I think if people follow our podcast, they'll know that we did a podcast with Saskia earlier this year or in sort of mid 2024 at the Dutch Couture Academy in Duisburg, which is about an hour or a little bit more than that outside of Amsterdam. And it's a charming little town and she has an absolutely beautiful studio in a little in a Jugendstiel building, which is sort of an early, early 20th century, late 19th century, I'm thinking sort of art nouveau ish style, building on A little street and it's very pretty, beautifully set up. And even though we had quite a few people there, it was probably a little crowded for Saskia. We had a good time. We walked in the door, she had a sign out in the front welcoming us.
- [03:01]
Jeanine Clagg
Oh, I know that you had a couple pictures of that. It was so cute and really nice. It's so nice to get that kind of welcome.
- [03:09]
Carol Frase
Oh, it was wonderful. Everybody had their little station set up with a little half scale mannequin and a bunch of materials and tools to work with. And so over the three days we did three different creative exercises. One was learning how to drape a moulage, sort of a bodice on the little form and that was the sort of a structured version. And then later she gave each one of us a piece of sort of drapey knit fabric so that we could just kind of freely drape whatever we wanted. And it was, it was really fun. It was, it was, I mean, for me it was a challenge. I have to work hard sometimes to let go and try it. But it was wonderful to see what everybody was doing another day.
- [03:53]
Jeanine Clagg
What a great hands on opportunity. But you're right, letting go sometimes you just have to. I mean, we're so used to having a real structure with our work, our everyday work, putting the magazine out. So I'm sure that was nice to just say, ah, I'm going to set that aside for a minute.
- [04:09]
Carol Frase
Exactly. And have, you know, maybe a little goal, but not entirely a goal, but explore the process. That was really, that was really interesting for me. In a similar vein, we all tried doing a lace collage to turn a given piece of lace into a different type of a fabric. And so this, everybody had slightly different types of lace. I think there were three or four or five different kinds of lace. And so maybe three of us had the same one. And you'd cut the lace apart and then kind of collage it back together on a sheer base, a sheer bodice on the dress form to make sort of a different look. And it was amazing. The laces were quite different. I had a, a rather large motif, guipure, so that was easy to cut apart into noticeable motifs. And some people had lace that was very sheer and light with small motifs and they had quite different results. And even people who had the same lace came up with different, different design ideas. You could tell who was comfortable going with asymmetry and sort of unusual looks. And some people really liked to put it together so that it looked like perfectly even and symmetrical.
- [05:19]
Jeanine Clagg
Now did you get the lace assigned to you or could you choose the lace?
- [05:23]
Carol Frase
No, each of us had a box, and in it were a bunch of different supplies, little bits of fabric and things that we could use. So you kind of worked with the lace that you got. And I don't know that anybody even bothered to trade. We were just sort of having fun doing what we had. And the last day, we made silk flowers, which is a really interesting process. I will only say that it involved open flames, hot metal, and very, very detailed cutting of fine silk fabrics. And my results were quite pathetic. While other people in the group had amazing results.
- [06:00]
Jeanine Clagg
What fun. Oh, my gosh, that sounds great.
- [06:03]
Carol Frase
I know I obviously need more practice with that, but I did have a good time. And Saskia is wonderful. She has a lovely intern named Marit who was great. And Saskia's husband Shudyan was there too, and they served us wine that he makes himself and little treats throughout the day to keep our interest up, even though it really wasn't ever flagging. So it just felt like the most fun kind of creativity self care event for three days. It was just exactly what I think I needed, and probably the rest of us, too.
- [06:41]
Jeanine Clagg
Fabulous. Wow.
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Carol Frase
Yeah, it really was. It really was good. We did a few other things that were. There were so many highlights, but one of them was we visited a place called Nitwit Staples, which is just outside Amsterdam. And it's actually a small farm that raises goats and goats for mohair and sheep for wool. And they. They actually go everywhere, do everything from the animal to the final sweater or blanket or whatever they make. I think they. They actually send the wool off to be processed in Italy because it is. I think it's. They don't have a place in the Netherlands that can do what they need to have done, but all the rest of it is done there. And so we got to see a bunch of that process, including the knitting with these wonderful knitting machines. They too had a couple of interns, young women, who I feel like they were about 18. I'm sure they were more than 18, but they, you know, people seem young to me these days. And they were doing the final steps of assembly on these sweaters, which was kind of a complicated process. They were sort of demonstrating that to us, and one was trying to teach the other one. It was. Was really interesting to see this happen because we don't see skills like this being handed down or handed across in generations the way that they used to be. That seems to be much more of a thing in The Netherlands. And I feel like that's a really important way to keep handcraft skills available and alive.
- [08:14]
Jeanine Clagg
Well, I think the other part of.
- [08:16]
Carol Frase
That too is it helps you appreciate.
- [08:18]
Jeanine Clagg
A little bit more where your clothing comes from. You're starting at the very beginning, where the sheep are raised and you're understanding how complicated it can be. But it also helps you appreciate what you have. And, you know, maybe you don't need 10 of those, you maybe just need a few and you treasure them and you cherish them and you wear them and you enjoy them way more.
- [08:43]
Carol Frase
Well, exactly. And I think that's part of their point. And it also helps you understand why clothes cost what they cost, if they're nice ones. I mean, I, I have to say that I didn't think their prices were high at all. I mean, they're more than, if you go to, you know, H and M, obviously, but they, they still were affordable for something that is, that is made sustainably and locally and is beautiful and beautifully made. So, so that was interesting. And along those same lines, we visited. This is not textile related, but we went to a place called Chocolate Makers in Amsterdam.
- [09:16]
Jeanine Clagg
Oh, yummy.
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Carol Frase
That does bean to bar chocolate making. And we got to do a little chocolate tasting. And again, I.
- [09:24]
Jeanine Clagg
What a chore.
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Carol Frase
Despite my. I know I made many, many attempts to identify the chocolates and I was not that great at it, but I did try hard by eating quite a few little pieces of chocolate.
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Jeanine Clagg
Good job, Carol.
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Carol Frase
It was. I know, I know. I didn't stint on my effort. One of the fun things about this was that, I mean, first of all, we got to see a little bit of how these chocolate bars were made. But I found out that they buy their beans from places in South America and Africa and they're all organically, sustainably fair trade sourced and they ship them all the way to Amsterdam on sailing boats. They use no fossil fuels at all to transport their beans all the way to their little factory. And the factory is run by solar panels and things. So it's, it's really, really sustainable and interesting and delicious to the point where they don't even, they don't even export it because they haven't found a way to do that without using, you know, sort of fossil fuel vehicles. So they do ship some chocolate into Germany in bike baskets by volunteer cyclists who take the chocolate across.
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Jeanine Clagg
I'm going to sign up for that.
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Carol Frase
I know. I was thinking I should go into some training. So those are really fun. We went to great museum, the Textile Museum in Tilburg. Which was in sort of an old factory and got to see old textile making machines and they have a lab there. So we got to see some of the really new things that they're doing. Beautiful weaving and interesting types of knitting. That was great. And there was a fair amount of shopping because everybody wanted to bring home important souvenirs. So one of the highlights in Amsterdam was Stephen and Penelope. It's actually a knitting and yarn shop which is run by Stephen west, who's an American expat and he is also a knitwear designer. He was in the shop that day, so we got to meet him and it was kind of sweet. One of our group had knitted a beautiful shawl from one of his designs and she was wearing it that day to show him. So she got to sort of meet her icon. Yes.
- [11:36]
Jeanine Clagg
Oh, wonderful.
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Carol Frase
That was. That was great. And we went to Haribos in Eindhoven, a really great store with incredible designer fabrics and also fabrics that are prints designed by one of the owners. Emily Hermans and her partner Mark, both own and run the store. The day we were there, one or two of their little boys were also in attendance with some buddies. So there was a little bit of youthful energy charging around in there, too. That was fun. Yeah. And she also designs sewing patterns. Really nice little jackets and dresses and things. Yeah. I've looked for them online and I think they can be purchased online, but I'm going to look into those a little bit more. I thought the designs were really nice and versatile and a little bit different, so.
- [12:27]
Jeanine Clagg
Okay. Maybe we can include a website in the show notes.
- [12:31]
Carol Frase
Sure. Yeah. Yes.
- [12:32]
Jeanine Clagg
Okay. Oh, wow. This sounds like a wonderful trip. And you've had lots of fun experiences, tasting and shopping, but also the hands on experience. So it was a good variety. And I'm wondering. So now Threads is offering a tour to London in 2025 in May. And we have an itinerary listed on our site at shop.threadsmagazine.com where you can also reserve a spot to join the tour. And the tour is May 3rd through May 10th. And, you know, I was looking at it and I see the tour prices. It's $8,500 per person, double occupancy, and 9,200 per person, single occupancy. That may sound kind of expensive for some of us. Can you tell us what that includes in this upcoming tour? Because, my goodness, after hearing what you did in the Netherlands, I'm like, oh, I want to go.
- [13:36]
Carol Frase
Okay, yeah. Well, we'll be staying in nice central hotels in London, I think they're four star hotels. There will be one night at the beginning, at the end at Heathrow and then the rest of the time is in central London. After we all get together, there's a coach, like a bus that will take us around from place to place. Not every single one. We may need to use a little bit of public transportation simply because the buses aren't. It cannot get into certain parts of the city, but when we go anywhere that it can go, we should be taking a bus. I have to warn people that when they go on these tours, it's a city, you're going to have to do a bunch of walking. So I would say always be prepared to do a couple miles or three miles a day of walking and wear comfortable shoes and don't worry about how they look because you're going to be happier if your feet feel good.
- [14:28]
Jeanine Clagg
Happy feet are happy people.
- [14:30]
Carol Frase
I know, exactly. So that's part of it. Staying in London is a little bit pricey. We're also going to have a special two day hands on workshop. Sorry about that. On making custom gloves with Rina Own. I hope I pronounced it right. She's a specialist in luxury leatherwares and she will be teaching us how to. How to make gloves to fit ourselves. So I think that'll be really amazing. And it's the kind of thing that's. It's very hard to find a class in that and I think once you learn how to do it, it's probably. I'm looking forward to it. I have kind of small hands and I think it might be fun to start working on a little. A little glove wardrobe for myself that fits classy and likes classy.
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Jeanine Clagg
I love this workshop. This sounds really great. And you come, you leave with something, you know.
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Carol Frase
Yeah, you will leave hopefully with at least one glove finished and then the other one you will make on your own. I'm not sure in two days you can do two because they're hand sewn so you may not get through all of them. We'll also do a day at Hand and Lock, which is an embroidery workshop studio that does a lot of embroidery for the Royal family and all kinds of other important British establishments. So we'll spend part of the day having a tour and part of the day having a class.
- [15:50]
Jeanine Clagg
You know what's really nice about all this, Carol? You're doing it with a group of people who have similar interests and afterward you have time to talk to each other about it, you know, and if you were to just take this on your own, go over to London and do it. You're not with a group, necessarily.
- [16:08]
Carol Frase
You.
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Jeanine Clagg
So you get to talk about it afterward. You get to share your experience. If you have questions, you can talk amongst yourselves. It's like an automatic. Automatic discussion group afterward.
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Carol Frase
I know. And I mean, on the Dutch tour, we. The last two or three nights, when we were at it, when we were still in Duisburg, after we had done our main shopping trips, we would spend the hour between getting back to the hotel and when dinner started with everybody would go to the bar, get a glass of wine, and then we'd find an empty room, you know, an empty sort of conference room or space and do a show and tell of what people bought. And I had to limit it to three pieces of fabric per person because it would have taken too long. But it was so much fun to see, you know, sort of learn people's personality even more based on what they purchased and what they planned to do with it. And everybody had ideas for each other and questions for each other. So it really was fun to do that. Yeah.
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Jeanine Clagg
Yeah.
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Carol Frase
So I hope we'll do that. Also in London, we will do some shopping there, too. At Joel and Son and Gold Hawk Road, there'll be time to go to Liberty for those who want to do it. We'll have a guided tour of Savile Row and also German street, which is where, you know, a lot of the tailoring traditions are centered, and a visit to something that I don't know much about, but I am really looking forward to. This is Angel's Costumes. It's the costume supplier for film, TV and theater. It's been in the family for seven generations. And apparently they have eight miles worth of hanging costumes, and they'll make or alter anything you need. So I just feel like that will be a lot of fun. Jeanine, you went with me to Helen Uffner's Vintage Clothing.
- [17:56]
Jeanine Clagg
Yes.
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Carol Frase
Which is in Long Island City, if I recall. And she also has, you know, probably a mile or more of vintage clothing hanging that. That's used for theatrical productions and TV and so forth. And it is. It's fun to be overwhelmed like that.
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Jeanine Clagg
It was overwhelming. Floor to ceiling, row upon row upon row of clothing. And you thought, how am I gonna, like, look through this and understand? But you just got into it, and it was so exciting to unearth some really interesting garments that had very neat stitching. And, in fact, we have featured some of those garments that we found during that visit on our back cover over the years. And it Is wonderful to be able to share that with people. Our little finds through all of this. So I wonder if you'll find some interesting garments as you go through eight miles of costumes.
- [18:51]
Carol Frase
I know. I don't know that we'll get to get our hands on all those. And I should also mention the guide that we had with us on the tour to the Netherlands, I believe will be joining us in London. Her name is Kitty Wiegert, and she's a Dutch lady who is on the tall side, probably around 6ft tall, which is very nice because in crowds you can always see her. And she is a really knowledgeable, fun and friendly person and has a great way of keeping the group together and moving along, because I'm not great at that. And it was nice to have somebody who was good at that, knows her way around, never took a wrong turn, got us in and out of public transportation gracefully. Nobody fell down any cracks anywhere.
- [19:38]
Jeanine Clagg
Well, that is the one thing that you did mention about the trip earlier, that you were very impressed with her. And everyone on the trip seemed to really enjoy being with her and being guided by her as well. You know, that's so important when you have a tour, to have someone that you can rel on, someone who has good rapport with everyone in the group.
- [20:00]
Carol Frase
That and the fact that she made a real effort to make sure that she understood what we were interested in and what our goals were and to inform herself so that we could get sort of enrichment everywhere we went.
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Jeanine Clagg
Right, right. Well, and this London tour has a little bit of food enrichment as well. There are some meals included, but. And you're also going to have high tea at Fortnum and Mason, which. That's a great experience.
- [20:29]
Carol Frase
I think that should be fun. Yeah, I think so. And I have asked for them to set us up to go visit the Victoria and Albert, where there will be an exhibition of jewelry by Cartier. And I have actually been to a Cartier exhibition in the past, and it was amazing. I'm not, you know, that much into jewelry, but it is, like, the most beautiful, very inspirational.
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Jeanine Clagg
Yeah. Wow. Well, so what is the deadline for reserving a spot on the London tour?
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Carol Frase
We ask for the deposit by February 22, and then the final payment is due on March 22. And there's a limit of 15 people on this tour. If we don't have 15 places sold by February 22, then people can continue to reserve afterwards as long as all of the, you know, the full payment is made by March 22nd. But we're. We're Already taking some reservations now, so.
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Jeanine Clagg
Right.
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Carol Frase
You know, right.
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Jeanine Clagg
Space is limited, so if you're interested. Yeah. Check it out.
- [21:31]
Carol Frase
Yeah.
- [21:33]
Jeanine Clagg
Well, in the meantime, while we wait to head to London, we can read our latest issue of Threads. It's the spring 2025 edition and there are lots of articles to help you create some garments for the warmer weather. There's the Spring forecast by Vanessa Nerodi and that goes through trending colors, what fabrics are in, and the latest patterns for creating clothes that are in style. Those beautiful illustrations in this article are done by artist Stephen Fleck. Carol, there are a whole bunch of great articles. Do you want to walk us through a couple of them?
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Carol Frase
Well, there are a few that, I mean, I like them all, but I know we have Elizabeth Bryant who's going to teach us how to do a perfect layout for matching prints with an example as a shirt. So that if you are working with a print and you want to make sure that the motifs are not chopped up all over the place, you can follow her directions on doing that. I learned a few interesting things about various horizontal and vertical repeats that, you know, twisted my mind a bit into a knot. But then, you know, you look at the diagrams and you think, oh yeah, that all makes sense. And I think we can do it. So that's good. I'm currently working with Chacha Hudson on an article about sewing strategies for plus size sewists. So they get a quick win when they're making garments. She is a PhD candidate focusing on design of clothing for people for an extended size range and she knows that if you are sewing and you're not within the so called standard sizes, it can be extra frustrating. And so she's going to talk about how to make that a little bit easier and recommend three patterns that she really likes that, that are relatively easy to fit, give a nice look and, and aren't hard to sew. So if you're a beginner, you can dive in with this and, and have a good result if you're more experienced. They're still really cute looks.
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Jeanine Clagg
So. They are. They are cute. And yes, anyone can, can wear these designs. They're really nice and they don't require a ton of fitting. They're well chosen. She's very thoughtful about this. So.
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Carol Frase
And Janine, you're working on something with Pamela Howard.
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Jeanine Clagg
I am. Pamela teaches advanced garment construction and she has been a contributor to Threads for quite some time and she makes amazing tailored garments and she's currently preoccupied with making shirt dresses and she shares some of her findings and Helpful construction tips. In that article, Pamela is. She is amazing. She always shows us some really good ways to approach making garments and very specific tips on the construction, and I'm very grateful for that. Our Exploring design department also features a pretty tailored spring blazer, and it's got unusual detail by a new designer, Anika Geisberger. And I don't know if you recall, but Carol, Anika won the Threads Award that we had given to Marist College student. It's now called Marist University, by the way. They just changed their name and it's for a student who shows outstanding garment construction and she won last year. She shares how she created that blazer that was part of her collection in this how to article.
- [25:04]
Carol Frase
It's really beautifully tailored and it also has really interesting and unique embellishment. But the design feature is has to do with the collar and lapels, something I have not seen before and is very cool. I don't know if I should give any spoilers, but it's a really interesting. I guess you could call it a pattern hack, but that always makes it sound like less than it really is. It's a complete redesign that gives you this really amazing look. And I could see this working in all types of versions of this jacket. I mean, hers is very spring like, but if you wanted to do it in a menswear wool, it would also be really great. Yeah. And it's just fun to see that level of talent and expertise in somebody who is still so young. Actually, Janine and I got to when we were giving this award, we got to go and look at some of the graduating students collections. And Anika's was unbelievable. Boy, I don't know how you could have enough hours in the day to just do the work she did, let alone do it at the level she did. It's very impressive.
- [26:16]
Jeanine Clagg
I agree. Yes. So we are very happy to be able to share that with all of you. Well, there are so many more stories in this Spring 2025 issue. We invite you to take a look. If you're a subscriber, sit down with a cup of tea and go through it. If you're not, please subscribe. Or just pick up the magazine at the newsstand and take a look at it. We think you'll appreciate it. And Carol, thank you so much for talking about the tour that you went on last year in 2024 and about the upcoming one. I'm excited for you. This London sounds wonderful. I might just.
- [26:57]
Carol Frase
Because you could come join me. You will sometime. And I really am sorry I ran off at the mouth about it. You know, I started thinking about it. It's not like something that I'm obsessing about day after day because I have a lot of other stuff to have my mind on. But when I start thinking about it, I just have these just wonderful pictures in my head of the things that we did and, and how much I enjoyed meeting everyone who was part of this trip. It really was nice. It was really nice to feel about that we were making new friends and as you say, sharing something that we love so much with people who also love it.
- [27:34]
Jeanine Clagg
Yes, that's. Yes, it's a wonderful feeling. New friends. Well, we invite you to come and we invite you to take a look at the spring issue. We appreciate your time and thank you for listening. See you next time. Thank you to our guests for joining us and thanks to all of you for listening. Please remember to send your comments, questions and suggestions to threadsmagazine.com and please, like, comment and subscribe wherever you are listening. Until next time, keep on sewing with threads.