Wow, so exciting to share these amazing designers with you every day!
My first blog crushes, way back when I started learning to sew (ah hem…five years ago!) were Erica Sage of Craftyblossom and Ayumi Takahashi of Pink Penguin. I used to stay awake late at night, pregnant with my baby girl, pouring through sewing blogs as though they were the most fascinating thing on earth. Something about seeing these cool women sewing cool sh*t in our modern world felt so right and so soothing to me. It felt like a really big conversation and all I knew was that I wanted to be a part of it because it felt so good.
So I learned to sew. And I started my own blog. It felt like that modern craft conversation had the momentum, energy and intrigue of some early twentieth century art movement…and it still does. I felt like I was on the ground-floor of say, the Post-Impressionists in Paris, 1910…but instead of wandering around bars in Paris and discussing big ideas of art and life in a drunken state, we were trolling craft blogs in our pajamas after our kids went to bed, rewriting the role of sewing and the handmade in our techno world.
Instead of being about darning, patching or even constructing garments, the modern sewing movement is an ancestral urge to CREATE: as in beating-drums-by-the-fire-creating….as in making-stuff-heals-our-post-feminist-souls-creating…as in put-away-your-pantyhose-and-can-some-peaches-in-our-apron-all-day-creating….as in WE-ARE-CLAIMING-OUR-SPACE-AS-CONNECTED-LOVING-BEINGS-WHO-SHOW-THEIR-LOVE-THROUGH-OUR-HANDS-CREATING…as in we-are-sewing-to heal-the-world-creating. This is big stuff. And it is an honor to be a tiny voice and part of that conversation.
Back to Erica from Craftyblossom….Oh, the lovely, refined modern-ness of her spare and fresh approach to quilting. When I fell in love with her blog, I pictured her as the hippest of hipsters…those people who just have their finger on the pulse of the moment–the zeitgeist. She is very talented. Eventually, blog comments connected us and now we are blog friends. I am grateful and honored she took time to sew this for me….go enter her giveaway HERE to win some PAINT of your own!
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from Erica of Craftyblossom |
Also today, I am thrilled to feature another radical sewinista, Rachael Gander of Imagine Gnats. You no doubt already know her, because she has quite a following! And she is lovely and kind and we also becomes friends through the industry. She offered to sew one of her cute Bess Tops for me and I got to pick the fabric! It is fun to pick fabric for this shirt because you get to tell your story through color. I chose my Painted Solid in the Spackle color way for the body and the shoulder details has Staggered Newsprint strips in Coral. I hope you can see from my smile below how comfortable I feel in this wearable and chic shirt! It is so flattering and the drape is perfect. But the best part is hidden: Rachael embroidered a tiny paintbrush onto a tag for the neckline since she was sewing with my PAINT collection for Windham Fabrics. Thank you, Rachael! Go enter her giveaway here to win some PAINT of your own!
Below is her new Alder skirt pattern…so comfortable and the pockets are fun.
I’m really loving these posts & can’t wait to get my hands on the fabric! I plan to make a washi dress from one of the prints eventually…. you might want to double check the links in your post, especially in the section on Rachel. Thanks for your awesome designs