Project Runway — What Did We Learn This Week? Season 11, Episode 7

This post is part of a new weekly feature wherein I recap all the lessons I learned from this week's episode of Project Runway. Please comment below to add any lessons you picked up that I may have missed!

Each season of Project Runway has featured one "unconventional materials challenge," in which the designers must create a stunning garment out of, for example, hardware, candy, Christmas decorations or their own underpants (That happened, right?).

This season, however, has already thrown all our expectations out the window with the weekly teams challenge motif. So why wouldn't they also do a second unconventional materials challenge, this one involving the use of duct tape (I just had a GREAT idea: how about a whole season of unconventional materials challenges? Producers, if you run out of ideas, here are a few suggestions: bottle caps, unfinished knitting projects, leftovers (food, not fabric), and the entire contents of my purse. Call me!).

The Anti-Pinterest: Making You Feel Better About Your Home, Body, Parenting...

Where do you go for your daily dose of self-loathing? If you're anything like me, you probably get it at Pinterest. 

Most of us used to rely on lady mags, Martha Stewart, and judgmental friends to make us feel bad about our bodies, home decor, and parenting. Thankfully, we no longer have to wait until the beginning of the month, or even pay to look at pretty pictures of unattainable bodies, home decor and parenting!

Finished Object! Mommy Poppins Bag

One project done on the new-to-me Singer Featherweight, and I'm already thinking of all the garments I could attempt now that I would never have been able to do on my anemic contemporary Singer. Jeans? A leather jacket? 

I digress. The new machine, on loan from the Peter Lappin Singer Sewing Machine Museum, Chelsea Annex, came just in time; I don't think the Mommy Poppins Bag I made this weekend would have turned out half as great without it: 

I was so thrilled to test out Jodi Bonjour's newest bag pattern. It's actually a diaper bag, but I think it does just fine as an NYC-sized handbag.

Look What Came Home With Me This Weekend!

Yesterday I traveled down to the Garment District in Midtown Manhattan to buy a few remaining supplies for my Mommy Poppins Bag. I picked up fusible interfacing at the Fashion Institute of Technology bookstore and a magnetic closure at SIL Thread (plus muslin for Kenneth King's "Jeanius" Craftsy class, which I am finally going to get serious about soon I swear).

But I completely forgot to buy lining. I did, however, bring home something much, much better.

Project Runway — What Did We Learn This Week? Season 11, Episode 6

This is the 2nd post in a new weekly feature wherein I recap all the lessons I learned from this week's episode of Project Runway. Please comment below to add any lessons you picked up that I may have missed!

The most challenging challenges on Project Runway are always the ones in which the designers have to work with real (i.e. non-model) people — a fact which we sewers should all find comfort in; non-model bodies are harder to fit and flatter (So lay off yourself a little when your pants pattern takes three fittings to get right!).

And this week's challenge was a first for Project Runway (correct me if I'm wrong) — featuring a sassy group of senior ladies in all shapes and sizes!

I would have been scared too. Designing for the mature woman is not in the wheelhouse of most of these designers. And the rest of us can learn from their mistakes when it comes to style, fabric selection and slutting it up a little.