Every designer needs a little TR in their life!

May 28, 2014

In the spring of 2012 I was invited to attend a “sew and tell” sewing group where each sewing enthusiast would bring in something they sewed and share what they learned with the rest of the group.

One of the ladies in the group brought some samples of a workshop she took in San Francisco with a Japanese designer named Shingo Sato. The samples she showed left me speechless and in awe! It was a new way of creating designs that I have never seen before and of course I had to learn this new way of patternmaking.

So I quickly looked up Shingo Sato on Facebook and requested him – he accepted. After that I became a bit of a fb stalker – liking all his pics, sharing his pics, tagging him on pics..I really really really loved his work!

At the time the only way you can learn his technique that he calls TR (short for Transformational Reconstruction) was by taking a trip to Japan or Italy and taking one of his workshops or if you were lucky enough to take one of his traveling workshops like my fellow sewer did as she flew to San Francisco to take his class.

But one day in late May my prayers were answered and Master Shingo Sato himself messaged me on Facebook ( I think my FB stalking paid off lol) and asked if I would like to take part in his first online private Facebook class where he would teach us the basics of TR and of course I said yes!! He would teach this class free of charge and would get about 40 designers from around the world that were interested in learning and put us all in this virtual ‘classroom’ uploading private YouTube videos of different TR assignments we had to copy every week and upload our pics for comments and critique from my classmates and sometimes from him (he’s a very busy generouse man!)

This class lasted about 3 months and needless to say it was one of the best experiences of my life! Master Shingo Sato is a genius and the most generous man I have ever ‘met’! TR patternmaking changed my life and trust me once you start you won’t want to stop, you will become a TR addict! I also made some wonderful friends from all over the world that share the same passion for design. So here I would love to share with you the projects I made for this class. Enjoy 🙂

Project 1. Basic Style Lines