If anyone is interested, I have issues going back to 1990 and have run out of room to keep all of them.
I will be glad to sell. If you need verification that I have the issues, I can scan the covers and send via e-mail as verification. I think that $5 would cover the cost of the issue and mailing for 1 issue.
I don’t know if this is Ok with Threads, but if it is not, please let me know. I will try to do something locally.
Thanks.
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Replies
I simply can't imagine anyone wanting to dispose of old copies of Threads! I have a larger collection than you have and refer to it constantly. I'm sure you will find takers if you decide to part company with your collection.
BTW, I'm surprised that Prospero allowed you to use "Sandy" as your name for posting.....I've been posting as "Sandy" (my real name) for almost a year. To avoid confusion, you may prefer to alter it somewhat.
I don't know how the system let me use the same name either. I will change it, if I can find out how.
There are some of my Threads issues I won't part with. But recently I can't seem to get motivated with the articles. It must be me, but I find the articles are not as interesting as the ones they had in the past.
There is no other magazine like it.
I agree that today's articles don't seem to be as inspirational as those in the old issues. If you check the archived messages, you will find that a couple of months ago we had quite a lively discussion about the content of Threads and the direction that it should go in the future. I'm sure that the editors will welcome any comments you might wish to make.
Dear Sandy & Sandy
I agree the new Threads are not as inspiring as the early issues. To my mind there is too much emphasis on machine anything. Embroidery, cutwork, clothing style is not very inspiring. Hand needle artists are being shockingly overlooked, as are in depth haute couture tips and tricks. I nearly lost it when the last competition pictures were printed, most of that stuff was out of sight (and out of their minds). Delicious details are shown but they are drawn! Hey Threads out there! Photos! we crave photos! and then articles detailing how to copy the divine designs on the back.
While the magazine is still the best I have seen, it has lowered the bar more than a little - to our loss.
Dear Louise,
I can't agree with you more! I think that the competition as written has run its course and the latest designs are absurd. Who would wear any of them? The fabrics were awful! My favorite articles have been on couture or top flight ready to wear. I aspire to make high style clothing, I can buy ordinary!
Nancy
Ah Nancy!
A kindred spirit! I also aspire to create high quality garments even though I cannot even buy ready to wear. (I have a really wierd body shape). Nonetheless, the only resource we have is Threads. It is up to us to keep that haute couture flame burning!
Throw a bra in the fire there, sister!
Seriously now, I would like to see them give greater time and better photo coverage to haute couture techniques and clothes that are classic and timeless, both because they are made of above-average fabric and because they are made with much better than average construction. When the time comes for me to part with most of my garments, I feel like I have lost a good friend, and there is NOTHING left to put in the goodwill bin! They just go off to a back closet, moldering there with the dust bunnies! It may also be the reason why I don't alter clothes I make. It would be much easier to start from scratch!
Can you imagine altering a pair of pants or a skirt that you have shrunk and stretched (on purpose) for a custome fit? EEEkkkkk!
The last competition was completely absurd, I agree, but that Star Trek jacket (yellow and black) should have won the subscriber competition (whatever it was). It was a tour de force of construction and stitching! Whatever were they looking for to have passed over it for that flowey drapey (droopy) thing?
I do feel compelled to add that at least the people at Threads will answer you, so there is hope. In addition they take constructive criticism well too!
Claire Shaeffer has written a superb couture sewing book, titled (!) Couture Sewing techniques. ISBN number 0-942391-88-8. It is worth its weight in gold, or even fabric!
Anyway keep on sewing!
Cheers
Louise
Edited 8/14/2004 1:12 am ET by Louise
I think that my favorite articles over the years have been on designers and their techniques. I really hope to see them again. I have Schaeffer's book on High Fashion sewing secrets, but I will have to pick up her book on couture. I have looked at it, but not bought it yet.
Nancy
Hi, Louise,
I love the Couture Sewing Techniques book, too. I must confess, though, that I don't use a lot of the techniques in the book, I just like to know about them, in case. I also love Claire Shaeffer's Sewing Shortcuts book (I don't remember the actual title, unfortunately, and we don't seem to have a copy in the office)--her shortcuts aren't shortcuts in the "cheater" way, but rather simple, easy techniques that provide great results in daily sewing. I don't find much time to do really complex sewing these days, unfortunately, but when I do (someday in the future when my kids are a little older), I look forward to employing those couture techniques, too.
As for the "Inspired by Threads" challenge--we'll be judging this year's entries this week, and I can tell it's going to be a tough job. Each year the finalists get more and more wonderful; last year we had a lot of trouble narrowing the field to pick winners, and each winning garment had something so special about it that we argued for quite some time amongst ourselves. It'll be at least as difficult this year. It's very exciting to see the high level of skill the participants have developed, and the wide range of styles represented is amazing. Each year I fall in love with the finalist garments, and can't wait to meet the people who made them. They've always done something I wouldn't even dream of, so I get inspired myself.
Carol
Carol
I am sure it is quite difficult. It is a pleasure to hear from one of the judges and I wish I could be there to share in the fun.
Good luck with the judging!
Louise
Thanks, Louise. I wish it were possible to invite readers to come see these garments up close, too. Sometimes it's the subtle things that really blow us away--incredible handling of a tricky fabric, perfect matching of a plaid or pattern, or pristine finishing on the inside--and these don't show up on a quick walk down the runway or in the magazine photos, either. And that's just the finalists! The entries that weren't selected as finalists weren't by any means losers; there were some awesome pieces there as well.
Carol
Dear Carolfresia
I am quite certain that there are factors that we, he readers cannot appreciate. It does seem though that rather unstructured garments are favoured in general. I was tempted to submit a suit I made for my mother, though I did not know how to do it and she wouldn't part with it, once in her hot little hands!
The suit, matching blouse and dress was a birthday/Christmas gift from my father, my 2 brothers and me. The lads paid, I sewed. If I say so myself, it was a triumph! My mother always placed my father and her children first. Countless times, she sewed far into the night on a special garment for me, after working in a factory all day then attending to domestic matters at home; finally going down to the sewing room after she was sure I was asleep. The only thing I never heard her say was that she truly wanted was a suit made by me, as I have become skilled at tailoring, and she no longer truly enjoys sewing. I never heard her say the words but her eyes asked many times as I worked through some confection of my own. She was my first sewing mentor and she has a remarkable sense of style.
The black suit was lined and underlined. I raised the armholes for a European fit and it did indeed make her look slimmer and longer in the torso. The jacqard of the suit was perfectly matched even though the pattern had been adjusted to fit her both on paper and then in fittings. The lining she chose was a rather Charles Rennie MacIntosh type red rose on black crepe. I matched the lining's roses with those on the blouse and it's sleeves so that when she wore the complete suit,or the skirt and blouse alone, the roses all marched in line. I used a Hong Kong finish on all the seams of the suit. I french seamed the blouse. I hand sewed until I developed a deep divot in my "needle-driving finger" and then hand sewed some more with thimble in place. Knowing that she would never use a true Chinese wedding pocket, being much too modest to reach inside such a jacket pocket, I modified the notion and made a smaller pocket on each side of the facings, just large enough for a lipstick, a small card or a handkie and edged them with tiny points a la Richard Tyler. Each point has a small, parallel slash of the red rose stem. In every aspect I used every fine tailoring technique I knew and researched some new ones as well. I monogrammed each piece (except the blouse of course) using an early 20th century floral monogrammed motif that happily included her intials!
The local embroidery shop waited breathlessly on every visit for updates on the progress of "the gift" as I searched out needles, silks and gilded threads to use here and there. The owner and staff of The Sampler are simply the best!
The best thing of all about the suit was the way my mother was transformed in the owning of her longed for suit and the way she glowed when she wore it. She fairly walked on air! Apparently, every time she wore it she received many compliments on her appearance. I like to think she had a Cheshire Cat-like smile thinking about her monogrammes.
Anyway, the work was inspired by love and by Threads and I am grateful to have been inspired by both. Now that I have told you about it, I feel I have repaid a debt for all the articles and one-to-one feedback by the authors and editors of Threads. I'd send a photo, but being a black suit it does not show to best advantage. Do keep up the good work and please, don't forget the sewers who crave haute couture. Please honour the craft by keeping alive all aspects of the art, both new and ages old
Louise
Louise, I just read the description of your mother's suit, and...........wow.
WOW!
That sounds incredible. I'm so impressed! The amount of couture-level work in it is just amazing. I'm very much in awe! I'm glad your mother likes it, too- who wouldn't, with that amount of work? I wish I had that kind of skill....
Caro
Ah you will just keep plugging along and flex your sewing muscles every once in a while. Try something haut-er on a simpler project and pretty soon, before you know it, you will feel really strange if it doesn't take you a month and a half to do a project!
A mixed blessing?
That is also why I love my serger even more.
L
What is a Chinese wedding pocket?
Thanks for sharing about your mom's suit. It sounds beautiful.
Dear Eauinaz
Great name! Is it one of those anagram thingy's that contain all the letters of a word, but mixed up? Or is it some exotic name which conjures up smokey-eyed ladies of incomparable beauty?
A Chinese wedding pocket is a rather large pocket set inside one's jacket. The opening is in somewhat the same location as a man's inside pocket, but its opening runs along the edge of the inside facing for about 5 or 6 inches. The pocket itself is rather large, taking up the majority of the inside space of that particular jacket front. For a better description check the Threads issue with/ do a search on Threads for, the green Richard Tyler jacket. I have often wondered how effective such a pocket is, as it seems to me that it would fold and scrunch under the inner and outer fabrics, but being obsessive/compulsive, I decided that if I ever put in a full sized pocket, I would stitch and tack the thing to withing an inch of its life to make sure it stayed put!
I suspect the original pockets were used of carrying of treasures, or little ferocious dogs or other means of personal security!
Regards
L
there is quite a huge market for back issues of Threads out on Ebay, if I were you I would list them there.
by the way, $5.00 to mail one issue is quite high, media mail to mail one issue would be $1.42 and first class probably wouldn't bee more than $2.00. I resell my books through amazon.com and have also sold some on ebay and I usually mail everything media mail which is the cheapest.
Sue - $5 was for the issue and mailing.
Ginna
whoops, my mistake
Thanks so for the suggestion.
You can also donate them to your local library. Our's sells donated books and magazines, books 50 cents, and mags for a quarter.
BTW, didn't the cent symbol used to appear on the key board? When did it become obsolete? Was it ever on a computer keyboard? Whose got a regular typewriter? Is it still there, and where? I guess if you can remember rotary phones, getting up to change the TV channel, and the cent symbol, you are .......NOT that old!
Off-topic, but wasn't the cent symbol a shift-6? Unless my high school typing skills have long since left me..... :-)
hmm... mine shows a ^ symbol. what is that?
Something that was added when we went to computer keyboards. There are all sorts of symbols on my keyboard that didn't exist on a typewriter keyboard....for writing programming text, perhaps?
Edited 6/23/2004 10:43 am ET by Sandy
¢ If you press alt and at the same time using the numerals on the right type 0162 you will type a cent sign. Look for your character map under accessories to find many more symbols.
Nope....doesn't work on my Mac. However, you did pique my curiousity and I looked it up in my favourite Mac info book, "The Mac is not a Typewriter" by Robin Williams. (Gee, why didn't I think of that before?If this was Cooks Talk, I'd say to slap me upside the head, but we don't talk like that here in Gatherings :-0 ) Option $ will give Mac users a ¢ symbol. Thanks, Jean, for reminding me that I do have a source for all the symbols anyone could possibly want to type.
You're welcome. Why aren't we sleeping? :)
*raises eyebrows* Am I the only one interested in buying some? I'd have to convince the parental units to let me purchase something on the Internet that's not from a big company, but oh, how I'd LOVE to pore thorugh old issues of Threads! The best garage sale I ever went to had a table full of fabric and old Threads books and magazines. I got a 1991 issue which I adore. They have instructions for knitting motorcycle jackets! How fabulous is that? And then there were those crazy collage-patchwork-quilted-whatever jackets that were stylish back then, but look absolutely heinous now. There's a great article about Jacques Fath by one of his dressmakers, and she demonstrates the draping and construction of one of his dresses. I, like many others, wish we'd see more of that in current Threads. Last time we had something like that was Brooke DeLorme, and she was a little off-kilter....even for me!
........Well, that post pretty much went everywhere. O.o Anyways, Sandy, let me know if you're still interested in letting go of your back issues!
Are you still looking to get rid of some of your back issues of Threads? I have been looking for issue #84, do you have that? If so, please let me know.
Sherry in TX
Yes, I still have it. Did you need something specific or do you want the whole magazine. I can scan pages and e-mail them to you.
Let me know.
Sandy
Sorry for the delay in responding. I have been out of town. How much do you want for the whole magazine?
Sherry in Texas
I am thinking that $5 would cover it. I don't know how much the mailing cost would be as I would have to buy a mailer. But I don't think it would be too much.
Let me know.
Okay. You can send me the details of where to mail the check to through my e-mail address [email protected]. I look forward to receiving that issue. I've been trying to locate it for a long time. Thanks!!
Sherry in Texas
Hi SherryG,
I tried e-mailing you at the address you listed and it was returned undelivereable. Try to send it again.
I've had a few others tell me that they have had problems too. Maybe I missed typed it. It is [email protected], or you can reach me at [email protected].
Sherry in Texas
You can send email through this forum by clicking on the name of the person you want to contact. (the name in blue above the message) This will give you a pop-up box about the member and right under her name is a clickable line that says 'send email'.
Most of the time it works. ;-)
Thanks, I didn't know that!!
Sherry in Texas
Ok. I sent you an e-mail. Hope it works.
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