It’s time for our next call for contributors for the Who We Are series! In this series, we explore how different identities might shape our experience in sewing and the online sewing community. We’ve explored many topics over the last two years, including being tall, petite, plus-size, or BIPOC. We’ve had over 30 posts in the series so far, and it’s well worth checking them out!
This time, we are asking for contributions from the following groups:
- Over 1 hour to the nearest fabric store: How do you plan and shop when you can’t just pop out for a zipper or some thread? Do you shop online or make the trip in person? How do you factor travel or shipping costs into your budget? #sewremote!
- Left-handed sewing: Do you have any tools or techniques as a leftie? Any tricks for making sewing ergonomically friendly for your dominant hand? (Or if being left-handed makes absolutely no difference, let us know that too! We’re curious!)
- Teaching children to sew: Have you passed on sewing to the next generation? What are your suggestions, strategies, resources and tips for teaching sewing to young people? How do you avoid them sewing through their finger or hovering over them until they get so stressed they never sew again?
- Sewing with an acquired brain injury/health-related “brain fog”: Have you had a stroke, concussion, or other health conditions that have affected the nimbleness or stamina of your brain? Are you on medication that permanently gives you brain fog? How did you ease back into sewing, and what strategies let you sew? Those of you who follow my personal blog, Crafting A Rainbow, will know I’m still not fully back to work after a concussion in October. I had no idea how a brain injury might affect every part of my life, and I think the more we share about our own personal experiences, the better!
If you identify with any of these topics, please send us an email to sewcialists@gmail.com with 1-3 paragraphs explaining your experience! If possible, please also send in a picture (it’s nice for people to put a face to a voice) and a 1 sentence bio linking to where people can connect with you online. We will combine your contributions into group posts, like this one featuring LGBTQ+ sewists or this one about mental health!
We can’t wait to hear from you! And let us know what groups you think we should cover next in Who We Are!
Gillian love sewing knits in bright colours and crazy prints. She lives in Canada and co-founded the Sewcialists in 2013.
I got nothing for any of these, but I hope someone has some pro-tips for teaching a left-handed child to sew. My six-year-old daughter wants to learn, but I’m somewhat stymied because she’s a lefty & I’m not sure how to guide her through the body mechanics. I’m probably over-thinking it, she learned to do plenty of things before we realized her hand preference, but I’d love to hear from some left-handed sewers to see if there’s anything I can do to help her along.
As a lefty who learned from right-handed relatives, my best advice is to ” show ” how to do the task and then allow your daughter to adapt the task to suit her hand use preference, and please, please, please don’t tell her she is doing ” it ” wrong just because she is doing it differently than you. ( My grandma was insistent that I copy her exactly; I couldn’t do anything “correctly” if she watched! )
Oh gosh! I live on a rural Island that is a full days round-trip (by ferry, boat or airplane) to any fabric stores. Recently, a local shop has opened that DOES carry zippers and Gutermann thread…and a small selection of mostly quilting-weight fabric. The shop has been a real blessing for us, but as a rural “all-craft” store there is only so much she can do.
The advent of online fabric shopping has been such a wonderful thing for people like me who live in “out-of-the-way” places. I do find it frustrating to not be able to touch fabric before buying it (I do favor shops that make buying a sample easy to do), but if I order a sample, by the time I receive it and decide to order the fabric, it may well be sold out…so if I really like the cloth I generally just buy it…hoping that it will be just perfect! It is helpful when vendors provide multiple images of a fabric to show drape, patterning etc.
In some ways, because of my fabric tastes, even if I did have local fabric shops, I might have to order online anyway! I appreciate the ways that fabric stores have evolved to make Milne fabric shopping as easy s possible.
Most of my fellow island residents used to have to make a monthly “Costco run” to the mainland to stock up on items that may not be readily available (or prohibitively expensive) on island…which necessitated taking a 6am ferry (and getting in line at 5am). Now, because of the convenience of places like Amazon, Chewy, etc, we can order our items online and skip that tortuous long days round-trip.
Love this. Don’t have anything to contribute, but looking forward to reading about other people’s experience teaching kids to sew. I just taught my first embroidery lesson to a group of 4-8 year olds, it didn’t go so well.
I wonder if sewists with PMDD would be of interest as a feature?
What is PMDD? Tell us more! 😊
It’s literally hell! Well, for two-ish weeks of the month, that is. PMDD is severe PMS to the extent whereby one can feel suicidal, extreme rage, overwhelming sadness, complete conflict and absolute self-hatred, as well as a bunch of physical symptoms like exhaustion, pain, bloating, etc. It rules one’s life and means planning holidays, celebrations (yep, even my wedding day!), work stuff, etc. carefully to avoid the worst days or else they’ll just get ruined – I know from experience! It really is a Jekyll and Hyde existence. 😔