Since 1989, Nancy Nix-Rice has transformed women’s lives by transforming the contents of their closets. Looking Good…Every Day provides universal style guidelines to help women of every age, dress size, budget and lifestyle save time and money by developing optimal wardrobes. Nancy consults with private clients and presents in-person and virtual style workshops and writes for THREADS magazine.
She previously owned an award-winning fabric store and sewing school and managed training for Baby Lock sewing machines.
In her online retail store , Nancy offers coordinating fabrics and fashion accessories. Her new online subscription community—LOOKING GOOD Together —l ets members learn together and support one another in creating their optimal wardrobes. Her Looking Good…Everyday video is soon available for streaming!
About the Author - Sue Neall
Sue’s lifelong passion for sewing started from the cradle with a mother who was a patternmaker and grader and three equally gifted aunts, all involved in Australia’s growing apparel manufacturing industry. After college, Sue was the national education manager for the McCall Pattern Company, national sewing promoter for Bernina Sewing Machines, executive director of the Australian Sewing and Craft Industry Association (ASCIA), co-founder of the Australian Sewing Guild, and founder of Australian Stitches magazine.
As the longtime director of Palmer/Pletsch Education, Australia, Sue offered workshops and teacher training. After teaching Palmer/Pletsch jacket workshops for many years, she joined Pati and Marta in writing Jackets for Real People.
Sue is also co-author of Knits for Real People (available as flipbook, too!) To showcase “Aussie creativity” in the book, Sue’s Australian students were invited to America to be photographed by Pati in her studio.
Sue currently offers fabric tours in Bali, Vietnam, Tuscany and more. Visit her website to learn more.
Her first pattern for McCall’s, in 1980, the 8-Hour Blazer, was the first-ever pattern using fusible interfacings and the Palmer/Pletsch “no fail” double-welt pocket. All blazer patterns since are patterned after that 1980 version, including McCall’s blazer M7818 by her daughter, Melissa Watson, who is also a custom suit expert. Many tips and examples are available from Pati’s blog.
About the Author - Marta Alto
Marta’s career as a sewing expert started when she sewed costumes for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. That led to a job at San Francisco State University teaching drama students how to sew costumes. Marta learned how to sew without patterns and to fit many actors’ figures. She is co-author of several popular sewing books including The Palmer/Pletsch Complete Guide to Fitting, Pants for Real People, Sewing Ultrasuede, and Jackets for Real People.
Marta traveled throughout North America and Australia teaching sewing seminars, and now gets rave reviews for instruction quality in her Palmer/Pletsch videos, especially It’s in the Details and her serger videos — now available for streaming from our shop.
Marta helped create the 5-day Sew a Jacket workshop that is now taught at our Seattle and Michigan locations. Learn to Sew a Jacket! streaming from this website is the follow-along-at-home version of the 5-day workshop, now available for streaming.
Marta helped develop the Palmer/Pletsch line of fusible interfacingsand a video on how to use them. She also developed tools for our interfacing experts available worldwide.
About the Author - Helen Bartley
Helen Bartley is a lifelong student of sewing, and her empathetic teaching style is all the better for it. Helen learned sewing at age 6 at her mother’s knee and studied clothing construction and textiles at Eastern Washington University. A Palmer/Pletsch Certified Sewing Instructor and corporate educator for more than 10 years, Helen offers additional classes in the Portland/Vancouver area through SeamDivas.com. Her book, Fit and Sew Custom Jeans grew out of workshops that she has been conducting for Palmer/Pletsch including her very popular Jeans that Fit 5-Day Workshop. Helen served as technical editor for the Palmer/Pletsch book Knits for Real People (available as a flipbook too!) and as contributor, garment sewer, and model for that book and the highly regarded The Palmer/Pletsch Complete Guide to Fitting. Helen says, “Even after a zillion pant and jeans workshops, I continue to learn about fitting. Learning to fit and sew any type of garment is an ongoing process. All our ‘real people’ students, while attending class to learn, teach us so very much. Thank you! I hope you’ll jump in, make mistakes, find answers, and ultimately enjoy sewing jeans.”
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