Sewing

We came. We sewed. We conquered. In under four hours, we were dressed in an authentic African ad'eze, courtesy of McCall patterns, by way of Nigerian designer Emeaba Emeaba. But even more fabulous is the fact that we were resplendent at less than half the cost of ready-made. We'd been lusting for a "butterfly" dress since trying one on three years ago in a tiny Inner Harbor stall in Baltimore. When we put it on we looked gorgeous and felt wonderfully regal. Upon inspecting the price tag, however, we felt decidedly less regal.

If you've never made a pillow before, The Pillow Book (Chronicle Books, $24.95), by Shannon Okey with photos by Gemma Comas, is a good place to start. For one thing, it contains basic advice about fabrics and pillow accents: nothing too precious if you have kids; nothing dry-clean-only if you anticipate stains; nothing too tempting to cats (tassels, fringe and the like); no mixing materials with different washing requirements. Plus, the book offers a solid foundation in those core steps of sewing prep: pre-wash, pre-shrink and pre-press.

In this, the year of the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, it can be reported that the spirit and the skill of Betsy Ross are alive and well in South Philadelphia. There is an official We the People bicentennial flag to prove it. No, that's not quite right. There are three such flags, all made by a modern-day sewing circle in South Philadelphia. This sewing circle consists of 15 women, hand embroiderers all, in the flag shop of the Defense Personnel Support Center, 2800 S. 20th St. Yesterday, the group put the finishing touches to the third of the flags made at the request of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution, which is headed by former U.S. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger.

Evelyn S. Pittman, a retired sewing teacher who once owned a custom-made slipcover business that was contracted by a major department store's home- decorating department, died Friday following a brain aneurysm. She was 81 and lived in Chestnut Hill after spending 37 years in Mount Airy. From 1949-59, Pittman owned Evelyn Pittman Slipcovers at two locations in West Philadelphia where she gained a reputation for her creative and expertly-tailored slipcovers, draperies and bedspreads.

About 50 students entered Mary Duft's family and consumer science courses expecting to learn about quilting. By the time the school term ended in June, the sixth graders came away with another valuable lesson. The 12 colorful lap quilts they made at Indian Valley Middle School in Harleysville were presented last month to the Ronald McDonald House in Philadelphia to be used by families of patients at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Duft said she selected the project to exemplify the school theme, "We gain when we give.

In the 1700s in Burlington County, most young girls and boys had three educational options: Learn how to sew, learn how to sew, or learn how to sew. So important was sewing that by age 5, children often had to know how to knit their own socks and mittens to ward off the Jersey winters. Clothes were so precious that every shirt, shawl, pair of britches or bonnet was marked with a number and the initials of the owner, in case anyone had any ideas about claiming an item that wasn't theirs.

Boys in this austere town in north-central China can spend all day in the classroom. But girls are taught a different lesson: Learning is a luxury they must earn. In a village-run workshop, teenage girls hunch all day over black "Butterfly" sewing machines, embroidering tableclothes and curtains that will sell in a department store in a neighboring town. The teenagers, who are 14 to 18 years old, get a small wage and are learning a useful skill. But the real payoff is the time set aside each day for reading and writing.

When Susan Botwick Murphy was laid off as vice president of marketing at TMX Interactive Inc. in Conshohocken in October 2001, she said she felt a sense of personal failure. "That lasted for me all of about two days, because I knew it wasn't me; it was the situation," Murphy, 38, said. But with the economy sagging after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Murphy also knew she probably would not be able to find a job in her field right away. "For the first time in 16 years, I was out of a job," Murphy said.

Maneuvering a square of cobalt-blue material back and forth under a darting steel needle, Sun Tok Kim sat at a sewing machine last week, nearly 8,000 miles from her native South Korea, working so intently she looked like a woman mapping her future with a Ouija board. At her side sat her 10-year-old daughter, Myung Hi Kim, her gaze fixed on the material in her mother's hands as though she, too, believed her fate in America could now be deciphered in the maze of stitching. Less than a month in America and only a day on the job in Philadelphia, Sun Tok Kim did not have to look far to find the future: She was already part of it. Operating out of small, so-called underground sewing shops, Asians such as Kim, 31, are rebuilding Philadelphia's once-flourishing sewing industry.

No longer is sewing exclusively a domestic skill; it's also an art-making technique. "Needle Art" at Rutgers University-Camden confirms it. In this traveling exhibition organized in California, 44 artists, including a few men, create a kaleidoscopic catalog of aesthetic stitchery. Some base their work on traditional textile models such as the dress and the embroidered sampler, but mostly the artists adapt sewing strategies to unconventional forms of expression. For example, Madeline Nieto-Hope made a wall hanging by cutting and flattening bicycle tires, then sewing the strips together as in an African textile.

THE 28 STITCHES over his right eye weren't enough to keep Manny Pacquiao from headlining his own postfight concert, which went on as usual into the early-morning hours on the Las Vegas Strip. He escaped with a win Saturday night against Juan Manuel Marquez , but that only tells part of the story. Seemingly invincible over the past 3 years, he looked anything but in scoring a majority decision over his Mexican nemesis in a win that enraged both Marquez and thousands of his supporters who packed the MGM Grand arena.

BALTIMORE - Rashida Webb loves shopping for vintage T-shirts at thrift stores, but not all of her finds fit well. Others could use a little extra embellishment. While she has had a tailor alter her vintage clothing, the practice got to be expensive. What to do? The resident of Baltimore's Reservoir Hill enrolled in a sewing class at SJ Fabrics and Sewing Studio in the nearby Midtown-Belvedere neighborhood. "For all the money I pay to get [clothes] altered, I could pay to take a class to do it myself," said the 29-year-old hairstylist, as she prepared to add a lining to a handbag she was making from scratch.

Baseball fantasy camp? Rock-and- roll camp? Ballroom dance camp? Oh, man up. If you're an adventurous guy looking for a summer camp, you need to check out the Arizona Cowboy College. Cubicle jockeys can learn cowboy skills at one of the weeklong sessions held in September, October, and November ($2,250). The days are packed with riding, roping, horseshoeing, and more riding. Students also learn about ranch operation, cattle breeds, cattle diseases, shipping, pasture rotation, and more.

WHEN MABEL Rooks Taylor was born, Theodore Roosevelt was president and Wilbur and Orville Wright had just flown that newfangled thing called an airplane seven months before. She died Jan. 15 at the age of 106, one of the city's oldest residents. She was living at Stapeley in Germantown, but had lived in her Germantown home until six months after her 99th birthday. Mabel was born on a 200-acre farm owned by her father, David Rooks, in rural Gates County, N.C. He worked as a blacksmith and raised prized horses and dogs.

Jayson Werth didn't even look. He knew. He knew because of the way the swing felt, the way it sounded when the 89-m.p.h. fastball struck his bat, the way the sellout crowd at Citizens Bank Park reacted. The bearded rightfielder flipped his bat in the third inning of the Phillies' 5-3 victory over Atlanta on Tuesday night. He trotted up the first-base line and stared into the Phillies' dugout. He pumped his fist. Inside that dugout sat Roy Halladay, who might have noticed Werth's salute.

PROJECT RUNWAY. 9 p.m. tomorrow, Lifetime. ON THE ROAD WITH AUSTIN & SANTINO. 10:30 p.m., Lifetime.   KRISTIN HASKINS-Simms' road to Lifetime's "Project Runway" has been neither short nor straight. At 38, the Philadelphia designer behind the line Strangefruit ( www.be strangefruit. com), who graduated from Germantown Friends School and the University of Pennsylvania - where she majored in English - isn't one of those newly minted fashion-school grads who've so often intrigued the judges.

I'M BROAD STREET BULLY, inviting all diehards to keep our Flyers spirit soaring by e-mailing your family stories/photos to: MAN DOLLS IN MALVERN: Inspired by her Flyered-up daughter Quinn, 20, Phoenixville hairstylist Jody Rabenau designed and hand-sewed Flyers jerseys for her 2-foot-high, anatomically correct, Asian ball-jointed dolls, Baz and Sergei. They make their public debut today in the window of Robert Michael's Salon in Malvern, where she works. "I honestly try not to buy into silly superstition," Rabenau said, "but I'm telling you, the Flyers have won more games when I'm sewing doll clothes and watching than when I'm just watching.

Rose Catania, 103, a longtime resident of Glassboro who was a career seamstress and community volunteer, died Monday at Mater Dei Nursing Home in Newfield. Miss Catania's secret to longevity was never marrying or having children and therefore never being stressed or aggravated, said her niece Joanne Laino, who added, "That's what she would say to people. " Being single left Miss Catania with energy to spare. After retiring from a 50-year career as a seamstress, she took up volunteering at her church and later at John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Washington Township.

Friendly and outgoing, Capri is described as being caring, kind and fun loving. Although she is only 13 years old, she is already planning her future. She is determined to have a career as a fashion designer or model when she grows up. In the meantime, she engages in activities that can help her achieve her dream. Capri loves art and drawing and was thrilled to attend a fashion and sewing camp one summer. She also enjoys listening to music. An intelligent teenager, she is in the eighth grade and is a good student.

Laura Stonecipher, a 28-year-old insurance account manager from Chicago, came to Philadelphia a few weeks ago on business. In the cab from the airport to her hotel, she passed the corner of 18th and Chestnut Streets and noticed a wave of script flowing across the wide glass windows: "Rittenhouse Needlepoint, instruction, coffee, conversation. " Stonecipher's pulse quickened just a little. If she'd been a granny with a thing for stitching Home Sweet Home samplers, her fluttering heart might have been easier to understand.