There are some new faces here and I thought it might be a good time to share why I’m here talking to you in the first place. 

A good time to share some of my story as a mindful maker and how that might resonate with who you are as a human and why we might be the best of friends!  

Buckle up.  This is going to be a multiple-part kind of story.  (don’t worry, I’ve got your back…I’ll spread it out so that it’s just right) 

I’ve been a maker my whole life…from the time I was little and I was making gift bags out of paper lunch sacks with shoestring handles and crayoned candy canes…I’ve been creating things.  But, I didn’t take up needle and thread until I was in my late 20s.  

That’s actually not true. 

In my early 20’s, I had sewn several things.  Like the one and only quilt of my life, a big queen size square in square quilt that was fun, but that completely itched that scratch if you know what I mean, and I’ve never picked up quilting again.   See I found this old, ragged, humongous metal travel chest at a garage sale and it had this worn-out, frayed red, yellow and blue quilt in it, really just a whisp of a memory of a quilt rather than a blanket itself.  And I could not get it out of my mind.   So, I made something like it, dusted off my hands, and moved on.

And I made several throw pillows, recovered a sofa, and made little gifts…bags mostly.  So I knew how to use the sewing machine but I had not done any garment sewing until frustration led me to it.

See my Grandma was a seamstress.  She worked in a factory during the day and at night she made wedding dresses, formal dresses, and bridesmaids’ dresses and lots and lots of doll clothes for her granddaughters. 

She made all of my formal dresses in high school and I can’t tell you how many times with pins clutched between her pursed lips, country music strumming on the radio, and with a steaming hot cup of coffee and a cat on her sewing table she told me “you better pay attention to what I’m doing because I won’t be around forever”. But I didn’t and she wasn’t.

Boy, do I wish I had.  Because it wasn’t long after that she got into a car accident and passed away. And I never got to learn from her other than through observation and some magical, hereditary instinct. 

But when I finally picked up garment sewing in my late 20’s, I felt like my grandmother was there with me and to this day, 14 years later, I feel like she’s a part of my journey.  And that ancestral connection feels amazing and drives a lot of my desire for circles of women gathering to experience life together, support one another, and make a thing with our own two hands.  Together.

But I digress, I was talking about becoming a garment maker.

Find out how frustration with my “weird body” led me to a deep and lasting love with garment making…coming next.

Have a making story to tell?  Share it with me!  Really.  I’d love to hear.

In Kinship,

Tina