Make your oak tag working master after you’ve made a prototype pattern and test-sewn it.

You can see that Kathleen is using paper in this tutorial. I like physician’s exam table paper, as it’s considerably cheaper than tracing paper (even student-grade architectural rolls) and won’t give paper cuts.

You can walk any pattern by sticking pins through the sewing lines, even on oak tag. Something light enough to see through is easier.

Womack and Jones’ follow-up book, Lean Thinking, addresses this problem in detail.

You have to get all links in the chain talking frequently and easily with each other. It’s difficult, and there will be active resistance and finger-pointing to offset blame. And fear that breaching confidentiality will weaken one’s bargaining position, blah blah blah.

Remember how it was so difficult for Toyota to implement these changes in Post-WWII Japan that Ohno’s uncle had to apologize publicly and resign as head of the company?

We can learn how others managed to surmount these obstacles (and perhaps as important, the mistakes that lead to others’ failures).

1) if I came up with the answer “the lining is too long,” I would assume that it was supposed to be folded over (most bagged hems Ive seen seem to be…), and rather than cut an inch off, I’d put a notch or two in to show it folding. I suppose you could check ths by comparing this lining piece with the one it’s supposed to attach to. If they line up, I’d suspect the fold more than an overly long lining….

2) I still use tracing paper to make my patterns because I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to walk oak tag. (did I mention I’m totally untrained?) I mean, with tracing paper, you can see through it to overlap the seamlines. So do you really fold the seam allowances back on every pattern? Is that accurate enough (that stuff is hard to fold! for me, anyway…)? Doesn’t it make your pattern a mess?

3) I just read “the machine that changed the world,” and it’s fun to see you applying some lean logic to your posts. But a question that’s been bugging me while I read the book bugs me even more now. If you don’t run a factory, but subcontract, how can you expect the sewers to be looking for mistakes and trying to make improvements??