It’s not Gabby 30! It’s a Gabby-celebration!

This post was supposed to be Gabby #30!  You were expecting another excellent post where Gabby explores fitting, answers questions people have on sewing or is just generous with her excellent knowledge.

But THIS ISN’T GABBY #30!  This is instead a celebration of all things Gabby to mark the milestone of her having written THIRTY posts for us (we will post the real #30 next week instead)!  This is our love letter to the Gabster, thanking her for her contribution to the sewing community and for just being all round awesome 😊

So who is Gabby and how did she come to be on Sewcialists?

Gabby is a technical fashion designer and fit specialist, which means she works in between the garment designer and the construction factory to turn the design into a technical specification.

Gabby ended up being part of the Sewcialists team after former editor Becky found her online and saw the immense potential of her knowledge and openness.  It was an excellent pick and Gabby has been with us ever since that first post in early 2019.

What’s the best thing about her?

Hands down, the best thing about Gabby is her generosity.  She is just always willing to help.  We have a channel in our Sewicalists Slack (that’s an app that you can use to chat with your team) which was created because I was whingeing about a fit issue and she immediately said, “anytime – send me pictures and we can work it out.”  LOVE that. She has helped many of us on the team with fit issues, sometimes even jumping in and making a project herself because she wants to understand the fit question better, as happened with the bralette saga!

Aside from being generous, Gabby is fun.  She’s a mum to some small people, she’s great to chat with and she is kind.  If I haven’t chatted with her for a bit on Slack she will check in, maybe about whether there is a post coming up but more often following up with other stuff – how’s life with me?  What’s going on with COVID in Australia?  Whatever, just to touch base.  She slid into Sewcialists as someone who might write a series of posts for us and now she’s a lifelong member.

Where can I learn more?

The first place to start is all the Gabby posts! These are a serious treasure trove of knowledge – worth taking some holiday time to read through them all and a great place to start if you have a question!

The first set of Gabby posts were a fitting series.  She walks us through how to measure yourself, how to measure garments and how to measure patterns.  She talks fitting tools, adjusting for height, how to fit denim and fitting a skirt muslin.

Possibly inspired by my endless “quick questions” (god, I hope not…!), the second set of Gabby posts launched as “Dear Gabby.”  Complete with agony aunt column graphic, this series is a bunch of posts where people ask all sorts of stuff about the sewing world – how do I pick a size, am I over-fitting, what is a fit model, why do PDF patterns suck a bit and so on.  Mostly recently she’s been talking with Wayne Laberda and his experience sewing and fitting costumes for his drag alter-ego Maxi, which has been fascinating.

Gabby’s posts are so carefully constructed and thoughtful, we would strongly encourage you to revisit all the posts and dip in and out of them as you need – they are an amazing reference set on things you might need to know!

If you want to follow Gabby outside of her Sewcialist posts, she’s on Instagram as @ladygrift.  We get all the super cool roller skating vibes from her feed!

So finally…

Thank you Gabby Brown!  Working with you is a pleasure, your generosity to the sewing community is fabulous, and we love you! 😊