Friday, March 9, 2007

Jan Brooks

Last night I attended the monthly meeting of the local ASG Chapter. Jan Brooks was the speaker. Jan's day job is at one of our local sewing machine dealers, but she has also grown into quite the wearable arts maven. This picture is a detail of the machine embroidery from one of her coats; the pattern is one she drew and digitized. Yes, those are lizards interlaced among the leaves. They are kind of a signature touch of Jan's that she uses in a lot of her designs because of the Southwestern connection, and also because she just likes working with their shape.



She has been in the Sulky Challenge for several years, and even won the Grand Prize recently. This coat is the Grand Prize winner. There's an amazing amount of detail on this, definitely a show piece. There are yards of machine embroidery on organza in it. And of course, yards and yards of Sulky thread! It is amazingly light in weight considering all the stitches and piecing.


She also won a competition at Bernina University (she got an Artista machine for that one) and is going to be in the Bernina Fashion Show this fall. Best of all, Jan is a genuinely nice person in addition to being immensely talented and creative.




I picked up some vintage patterns at the Trading Post, including a couple of Advance Patterns. I think this company probably disappeared before my sewing days because I've only recently became familiar with them through Erin at Dress A Day. These 2 suits appear to be from the early 60's. I especially like the one at lower right, which features princess seams on both the jacket and the skirt.

The other 2 patterns are 1970's Simplicity. I really like the top with the flutter sleeves at upper left, which should translate well to current times. I'm thinking that the yoke would be cute if sheer or semi-sheer.

4 comments:

Carolyn (Diary of a Sewing Fanatic) said...

Nancy - I like the suit on the bottom right, too! It will make a great work outfit...

Marji said...

fabulous embroidery.
I've got some of those old Advance Patterns too - Lanetz Living has gotten my business a little too often lately. Maybe we should do a Vintage Pattern Sew along when all this SWAP sewing is done.

Linda L said...

Great embroidery work she did. Great job on the lizards.

I have bid on a few of Advance patterns but not successfully. I just acquired a new vintage pattern from an ebay source whose name escapes me now. It was an Ann Adams pattern.

MéLisa said...

Oh those lizards at amazing! She came to your ASG Chapter meeting! It sounds like you must have an incredible chapter! I would love to hear more about it if you have the chance to drop me a note sometime. I couldn’t even get the lady in charge of the chapter here to get back to me on meeting info. I hope that changes when we move.

I love your vintage patterns! I have been picking them up over the last year or so too. I haven’t made any yet but I need to get over that fear I think. They have such great style.