Make the shirt of your dreams, as you enjoy "everyday couture" sewing practices and innovative design options.
Follow along as Cynthia constructs two different shirts in parallel: a standard woman’s shirt with a shirt-tail hem, breast pocket, collar on a stand and long, cuffed sleeves (choose your favorite shirt pattern); and her own shirt design (pattern included with this course), which features a straight hem with length options, front pockets lowered to the hipline for ease of use and a more flattering look (with a banded button closure), sleeves cut with the back of the arm on the bias, adding to comfort and movement, slot buttonholes, created as part of the seamline, a hidden placket option, a perfectly curved, flattering collar on a band and much, much more. She’ll share options, too: three different sleeve plackets, a variety of pocket styles and applications. Plus every detail needed to complete both shirts to perfection in this comprehensive, online course.
A downloadable pattern for Cynthia's original design is included with the course.
- Clearly demonstrated, precision sewing techniques for easy learning and consistent success;
- Design options that enhance your shirt’s comfort, ease of construction, and style;
- A complete online sewing tutorial, with insight, guidance, and detailed instructions at each step in your shirtmaking process.
Cynthia leaves no detail or process unaddressed in this comprehensive garment sewing course. She has chosen a wardrobe staple: the woman’s shirt, a timeless fashion "must have" wardrobe staple, for two reasons:
- First, you’ll wear it. All the time, in all kinds of ways. Your shirt will become a "go to" piece – the one you’ll reach for time and again, and wear everywhere with confidence and pride.
- Second, the two designs (the standard and her own pattern) bring together a collection of details and processes we encounter over and over in our fashion sewing. Her aim with this robust tutorial is to help eliminate frustration and send you on your way to more satisfying and successful sewing – and a great wardrobe. In other words, she’s created a course which includes all the details that make it worthy of your time and effort – the shirt of your dreams.
Meet the Instructor
The late Cynthia Guffey designed and constructed women's clothing for many years. What started as a custom workroom in Baton Rouge, LA, creating garments for high profile women and events, was transformed into a pattern business 25 years ago. From training workroom staff in couture techniques, her sewing methods also made the transition into a system of the most effective, practical and simple fitting and construction techniques, highly valued by the thousands of enthusiasts she shared them with at Original Sewing & Quilt Expo and in her lectures and workshops across the U.S.
Her fitting approach is derived from a mathematical background coupled with her constant search for the simple and the obvious. And although her precision sewing techniques are not short-cuts, she saves you time by helping you get it right the first time. Moreover, at each step in the process she shares how what you are doing affects subsequent steps, and “what you’re going for” in the result. Thus, confidence and satisfaction bloom for her students.
Cynthia’s design philosophy involves creating lines that multiply opportunities to fit and enhance a figure type, and using the grain of the fabric to enhance the look and feel of all garments.
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