Seven Core Sewing Skills by Cynthia Guffey

I'm a huge Cynthia Guffey fan. H-U-G-E! About a decade ago I spent two days at the Worcester Expo taking all of her classes.  Those classes, as well as, the books I brought home with me changed my sewing. It changed the way I measured myself, how I sewed and the speed with which I sewed.

Yesterday,  Ann McCormick left a message on Facebook about the Cynthia Guffey sewing classes on dailycrafttv.  Well you know I was all over this.  I purchased the Seven Core Sewing Skills to review here on the blog. There are two other classes and I will be purchasing both of them.  Ann also agreed to review one of the other classes, How to Fit a Jacket. (Updated to add a link to Ann's review, here!)

Now to give you a little background and I promise this will be short.  I've purchased a couple of Craftsy courses.  I've watched them about half way through and I've lost interest.  Not because they aren't thorough or well-taught but because I was bored.  This is not a judgement against Craftsy or the teacher.  It's me...totally me.  But for the Cynthia Guffey class I was glued to the computer and very resentful when I got a phone call and had to stop the video.  So a few observations...

The title makes it seem as if this would be a basic and easy video that discusses a few skills to up your game.  Ummmmm no!  About five minutes in, I knew this video was for the intermediate/advanced sewist.  Why do you ask? Because CG is delving hard into these topics.  She's not glossing over.  She is explaining the why-fors and the how-tos and if you're a newbie or an advanced beginner you will need to watch carefully to get what she's discussing.  Hey I stopped the tape a couple of times and rewatched a section because it was intricate and there is a lot of detail in the 59 minute video.

Her top seven skills ~
1.  Grain/Grainlines/Getting the grainline right
2.  Pinning the garment 
3.  Marking the garment
4.  Cutting the garment out
5.  Pressing the seams
6.  How to sew a perfect dart
7.  Matching seams at intersections

A huge part of this video is dedicated to grainlines and how to sew a garment perfectly on grain.  There are quite a few tips that will change how your garment hangs.  There were several pieces of information that just blew my mind...how Cynthia presses seams open, how she makes tailor tacks, how she handles seam intersections and how she clips a seam.

I will watch this video again, honestly several more times because there was so much information to glean from it that there was no way that I got it all the first time. Also, I want to incorporate quite a few of these things into my sewing to take my sewing to the next level.

Oh one more thing...the cost.  Each of CG's videos cost $9.99.  I think this is a price that most sewists can afford and it is sooooooo worth it!  Once you've paid for it, you can watch it over and over again.  Back it up...see it again...rewatch again and again until the techniques Cynthia teaches become habit.  At least that's what I'm going to do!

I highly recommend purchasing the videos.  There are more in the sewing section and some are less expensive than the $9.99.  It's another video resource that can only help you enhance your craft.

...as always more later!