Registration opens:
June 30th, 2026

Adult Art Lab - Cloth & Consequence

Pattern Making as Radical Self-Sufficiency in America

Learn to make your own patterns by deconstructing thrifted garments. No experience needed. We'll talk fast fashion, fabric quality, and why making your own clothes still matters. Covers 3 lessons.

Making your own clothes is a quiet act of defiance. This 3-week series teaches you to create your own sewing patterns by deconstructing thrifted garments — tracing panels, understanding seam allowance, working with fabric grain, and assembling a garment that actually fits your body.

Along the way we'll talk about the true cost of fast fashion, the history of dust bowl dresses and Depression-era resourcefulness, the garment workers whose labor built the American clothing industry, and why the skills that kept ordinary people clothed and self-sufficient for generations were so effectively erased.

You'll leave with a hand-traced pattern, a garment in progress, and a working knowledge of how clothing is actually constructed. All materials provided — bring a thrifted garment or old top, skirt or pants to deconstruct. Register once for all 3 weeks.

All materials are provided. Open to adults 18 and older. Please contact the library if you can’t attend the first class, as registration covers the full three weeks of sessions.

(Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash)

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