Threads magazine

Oh, yes. I've been subscribing for about 17 years, and still have every issue. It's that good.

Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati

YES! I've been renewing through Ebay auctions - think I'm up to about 2009! There are currently 4 auctions for 1 year of Threads with "Buy it now" prices of $21.95 each. This is for either a new subscription or a renewal. I don't remember if this is the company that I dealt with or not but haven't had any problems (I've renewed other magazines as well). Here's one of them...

or do an Ebay search for "threads magazine subscription" - search title and description.

HTH

-- -:¦:- ·.·´¨ ¨)) ¸.·´ .·´¨¨)) ..·´ Chris ((¸¸.·´ ..·´ -:¦:- ((¸¸ ·.·

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com Washington State, USA

I did one of those things for an incredibly low price for Sew News, and the place never came through and kept ditching me. If you have had a positive experience with these people, I am glad to hear of someone I could trust.

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

Run, do not walk, do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not let your credit card cool down, but subscribe NOW!

"Pat"

FWIW, I buy Threads magazine regularly and I'm not even a garment sewer! I savor all their home dec articles. The articles are very well written and complete. It's really an excellent magazine. I'm very choosy what I have for reading material, and it's up there with my Saveur (cuisine).

I buy my issues at Joann's with my 50% coupon -- that is $3.50 an issue, or $21 each year.

The new look of Clotilde's Sewing Savvy is now uncannily like Threads. Their articles are geared mainly towards home decor and clothing accessories is really my cup of tea -- it's almost in the same league as Threads but not quite IMHO.... there's a couple of projects thrown in the latest issue which seems to be leftovers from its former direction/mission.

Rose

With glowing reports like that!!!!

The check is in the mail!!!

Re: Threads magazine Group: alt.sewing Date: Sat, Apr 10, 2004, 5:15am (EDT+4) From: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (Chris=A0Underwood) "Pat" wrote I have heard all of you rave about this......apparently they tracked me down and sent me a subscription invitation. $30.00 for 6 Issues..........hmmmmmmmmm Is it really worth it??

I checked my feedback, it was subscriptions4less on Ebay that I bought renewals for "Threads" and "Bead and Button" from - with absolutely no problems.

-- -:¦:- ·.·´¨ ¨)) ¸.·´ .·´¨¨)) ..·´ Chris ((¸¸.·´ ..·´ -:¦:- ((¸¸ ·.·

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com Washington State, USA

I find that it has the occasional article that sparks me, but most of the time I'm looking for a higher level of skill input (more couture level than basics) or more specialist techniques (as for outdoor clothing). The sewing machine and fabric articles are good and keep me up to date. I buy it when the mood strikes and something grabs my interest.

Re: Threads magazine snipped-for-privacy@diceyhome.free-online.co.uk (Kate=A0Dicey)

Yeah. From her description I would have thought she was talking about Sew News.

Melinda, who also likes Australian Stitches magazine

Yup - that Threads mag! I have 90% of the techniques they go through either already in my head or elsewhere on my bookshelves. Many of their 'new' techniques and little couture tips are in my old 1930's sewing books or in the specialist ones I have. And they have yet to do a series on mediaeval stitching techniques, or how to form the stitches the Vikings used in their britches - which was hand sewn stretchy, AND finished the edges so they didn't fray! I'd also find articles on Celtic and Viking methods of weaving to shape interesting, but they don't cover that either... Their fitting articles are good, but most of that information I have elsewhere too. The last article I bought the magazine for was about godets: the ideas about how and where to use them was fun, as were the pix, but it was very sparse on how to finish the seams, especially at the top! Now THAT would be useful information. Especially pertaining to sheer godets inserted in the middle of solid panels!

I do like the way it is written and presented, and it does OCCASIONALLY come up with a neat idea I haven't seen before, but these usually concern new fabrics and machines rather than really new techniques. On the whole, I find the ads more use than the articles. The mags I get regularly are the Butterick and Vogue pattern mags, the bridal one, and Prima, which is a general women's mag that has a free pattern every month! :)

Ah hah! Another devotee of old sewing books. You know about

, right? Kay

it is the only magazine that I keep. Well I do keep some Sew News ones but when I run out of room on my shelf, I pitch some of the sew news, not the Threads ones . I wonder what I will do when Threads fills up the shelf.

Sandy E

Cool site! No, I hadn't come across that one yet, but it is now bookmarked! Thanks! :D

Re: Threads magazine Group: alt.sewing Date: Mon, Apr 12, 2004, 12:51am (EDT+5) From:

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote:

Because I have so little bookshelf space, I have to be VERY careful which sewing books and magazines I buy. I have a pile of quilting mags, full of great ideas, and a few, very select (;D) books on quilting and sewing. I *DO* have 4 copies of the RD book as I tend to lend it out when I have students. If I find a magazine (Threads or whatever) largely reproduces stuff in those books, I don't buy them. I keep the basics of sewing in my head and fingers, and I'm learning new stuff all the time. Ideas like boning the edges of pockets and gaping necklines, fixing a stay inside a garment to stop it falling down or to keep a fold or pleat in place are all there: the idea in my head, the particulars in the books. Remembering what's in which book is a bit of a task! At the moment I'm hunting up information on 18th and 19th C tailoring methods, Elizabethan corset making (there are only two extant Elizabethan era corsets in existence, and getting hands on experience with them takes more clout than I have at present! Finding out exactly what the general population [merchant class and above - the lower orders didn't need corsets as they didn't wear the clothing that needed a corset's support] used for 'boning', exactly which stitches were used to sew the thing up, and the composition and weave of the linen used is a little elusive. There's a lot of guesswork and supposition about, but not a lot of hard historical forensic evidence), Roman and Dark Ages stitching methods (not a lot survives!), and how mediaeval velvet was made. One of the best books for historical detail about costs the paltry sum of £75! I need a few more bridesmaids! I'm also trying to find time to learn to do Blackwork so I can embroider an Elizabethan shift to go under my court dress (when I get time to make it!)

If anyone has any questions, they need only ask, and I'll dig out what I can. The joy of having spent a large part of my previous working life in academic studies of one sort or another does mean that I usually know how to look for things, and have a decent idea about where to start looking.

BTW, can anyone recommend a better book about doing veils than 'I Do Veils - So Can You!'? The glue gun method works fine for school plays and one-offs, but it would be nice to have some other ideas and methods available for more heirloom type things. I'm nowhere near a decent bookshop, so actually getting my hands on the books before I buy is difficult!

Kate Dicey wrote: Finding out exactly what the general

I have seen convincing evidence for hemp cord (In the elenora of toledo gown) and bundles of 'bents' or broomstraws. I am in the midst of trying the hemp-cord one for myself, but I sewed the channels too tight and have to rip them all out again. poo.

For the lower-classes, I have become a huge fan of some of the Flemish Workingwomen's research (like in the Breugel paintings) that Drea Leed has done. I went to one of her classes at CostumeCon last year, and have since made 2 outfits in those styles. VERY comfy and supportive, and little to no boning at all.

But the main problem is simply that we have so few existing garments. There is the effigy and that german corset, and a lot of paintings, but you can't entirely trust paintings. Many who study medieval clothing have recently concluded that some of the garments that we have been reproducing for ages were really standard iconography for various saints, and do not represent actual stuff that people wore. So except for the occasional bog find, we're stuck.

Textile but not clothing-related...PBS around here has a series called 'Secrets of the Dead', where they apply modern forensic methods to sort out historical mysteries. The most recent episode looked at various views of the Shroud of Turin. (Yes, tests in the 80s dated it medieval, but their test sample came from one of the most-handled corners, and carbon from microbial contamination may have skewed the results.) I'm still on the fence with this one, but they presented several possibilities for various dates and the evidence to back them up. One of interest was a textile expert (Mechthild Flury-Lemberg) who was involved with some recent conservation work on it, who noted that the seams attaching the widths of cloth had a peculiar kind of stitching on them. That kind of stitch has been only found in samples from one other location - Masada, and dated to about 70 AD-ish. You can read her interview at

Z Chicago, IL (Moo)Wench Wear Costumes #525 AIM=wendylady525"Though she be but little, she is fierce""It's the little ones you have to watch out for...""I'm not short - I'm concentrated"--------------------------------------------------------

Poo indeed! There are records of Elizabeth's wardrobe (and from the Recever of Wreaks, who deals with washed up whales - which belong to the crown!) that mention whalebone, and some modern nylon boning is close to that found in 19th C corsets in both size and weight, and 'feel', but there is nothing to say exactly HOW it was put into Elizabethan corsets... I like Dreas stuff, and find it very useful, but she's the first to admit that it's all extrapolation and 'experimental archeology'!

I like the look of those as well. Breugel did at least paint what he saw, but not being a tailor, tended not to put the seam lines in!

And, let's face it, the pictures are all for either religeous establishments or royalty and nobility, so reflect what those folk wanted to be seen. Who went round drawing real peasants in a realistic manner? Nobody much before the 19th C. Some of the best 'early' stuff we have comes from 18th C fashion plates sent round to spread the latest modes to far flung towns, and how many garments were made to look exactly like THEM, I wonder? Precious few!

It's interesting to see some things up close... I went to an exhibition at the V&A a few years back: 40 years of British Fashion. After poking round the exhibition itself (and the garments were not in glass cases: they were close enough to smell!), I went and had a look at some of the other stuff. It's amazing to see where some of the best British designers got some of their ideas from. There were echoes of style and technique from the 18th C in a one shouldered dress by Vivienne Westwood, for example. Her stuff was odd, but beautifully crafted. The same could NOT be said for some of the Norman Hartnel stuff, which had lumpy hems with visible stitches! The Jean Muir stuff was all breathtaking too, with odd little echoes from earlier times so carefully and discretely used that they were barely noticeable. One dress I'd always thought of a mediaval has a strong 19th C Chinese look to it in the flesh!

Some of the 17th and 18th C garments in the V&A are very odd: quite crudely cut, but with exquisite stitching! Others are the other way about: beautifully cut, but with oddly crude stitching inside. I get the feeling that some garments were re-made from earlier ones, by less expert hands, or were hurridly refurbished for whatever reason. New linings put in by a local tailor rather than the original tailor might be another answer to this. And some garments were clearly made for one or two wearings, and meant then to be taken to bits and re-made. Often lace edging was made to be removed and washed while the rest of the garment just had to take its chances! Dry cleaning was not as advanced as it is now, after all...

I saw that Turin program on Chanel 4 recently. Fascinating stuff, if a bit inconclusive. The trouble is that the church won't allow a proper forensic examination of the thing, so I doubt we'll know in our lifetime. Shame really, as it is so damaged and fragile, and they don't really know how to preserve it for the future. Whatever it turns out to be in the end, it's and ancient and interesting bit of cloth, even without the religeous baggage it carries.

We still cannot produce linen and silk cloth as fine as some of that found in Egyptian tombs, either, even with all our fancy technology, microfibres, and CAD packages! Nothing beats spending your whole working life making the same type of cloth! ;) And we don't have to go that far back to see what skills we've lost, either. You should just see some of the records and samples of 19th C silk ribbon weavers we have in some of our local museums up and down the land. coventry was one ribbon making place, and ribbon weavers were paid more than others because of their skills.