Why I Blog About Sewing

In my early years I spent many of my visits to my maternal grandparents' house, and a great deal of my time there, watching my grandmother sew. She was incredibly talented and skilled with sewing. My grandmother could see an outfit in a store window, go home, draw up a pattern for it, and then sew it in whatever size was needed, and altering any details she felt improved the final product. My grandmother also sewed her family's drapes and window shades, and she reupholstered the antique furniture she and my grandfather inherited from his family. This was a good model for all sorts of problem-solving in my life, not to mention what could be done with sewing.

I have always loved visual arts in all forms, and studied various forms in school. In high school I studied the classic Fine Arts starting with contour and gesture drawings and on up to replicating a painting by a master artist (Georgia O’Keeffe) in an honors art class in my senior year. In college I studied Fine Arts, Theater Design (particularly costumes and sets), and Interior Design back in the days of hand-drafted blueprints, hand-painted color theory projects, and before most people had computers at home (CAD - computer aided design - was available only to high-powered design firms back then). One of my overall favorite classes I ever took during my studies was an introductory Textiles Science class, in which we learned the various physical and chemical properties of textiles, and how to identify different fibers both natural and synthetic, as well as the different types of fabrics made with those fibers, and what sorts of applications were best suited to each type of fiber and fabric.

Some years later after I was married and when my children were very young, I got involved in knitting, partially as a social connection to other moms, who all happened to knit. I was really starting to plunge deep into cable patterns when I sprained my hand. It took months and months of back-and-forth with healing and re-injury before I finally had to admit that I really couldn't knit big or heavy projects anymore. After some months of feeling blue about having to pull back on something I had started to enjoy so much, I decided to take some classes at my sewing machine and quilting shop. I had a very nice, classic machine that I had spent a lot of money on, but hadn't used much because of the limitations on sewing time and space with active youngsters in the house. Since my children were a little bit older at the time I injured my hand, I thought I could brush up my skills and see what I could do. After taking a basic class on how to use the machine, I jumped into the deep end and signed up for a class on sewing up a terrific, multi-pocketed tote bag, and I was hooked! (See my blog post on The Professional Tote) I've had so much fun, and have met and continue to meet some incredibly talented sewers, quilters, and machine embroiderers in the process. Most recently, I even worked at my favorite sewing store, Bernina dealership The Presser Foot, for a whirlwind 10 months (the end of 2022 and most of 2023), and I’ll be returning here and there to teach project-based sewing classes.

I started this blog as a way to document many of my sewing projects, mostly for myself, but also in the hope that other people who share my interests might find this and enjoy my show-and-tell. I have gradually been increasing the types of things I make, and while I haven’t punctually kept up on documenting it all (I’ve been too busy making things!), I did start taking photos at some point so I’ll keep adding posts on older projects even as I keep stretching into new directions. While my main focus is more and more becoming art, sewing gives me life and energy, and it always informs the way I approach any surface pattern designs I make. I hope that with this sewing blog I can inspire others who love textiles and fine arts and personalized living spaces.

- Juliana