Didn’t See This Coming, Did You? A Special Thank You Post

Hey everyone! This is a special thank you post for Gillian, Anne, and Chloe! I think for all of us here on the team, Sewcialists has been a special and unique experience and, as this chapter closes, we wanted to take the opportunity to express our gratitude. : ) We wish you all the best. <3

Dear Gillian and all the Sewcialists team members in the past and current.

How did you do it?

Creating 3 posts per week with the aim to generate sewing community thoughts and technical posts that are balanced and respectful is a full time project that PR companies get paid big bucks to do.

Has anyone benefitted from all this work?

Yes they have and trying to guess how many people have had their aha moment from all the sewing community contributions would be in the hundred thousands.

Would your 10 year old self believed you would have achieved so much at that age? It wouldn’t have been on their radar.

Is there more work to be done providing good information to benefit the sewing community and to recognise all people in the sewing community? Always.

Will Gillian and the socialists be missed? Yes.

Will Anne copy edit this thank you? I hope so.

Since the start of Sewcialists since the early twitter days, thank you for taking the Sewcialists lead for these 3 years.

Have a great break and I do hope you’ll come back at least one more time.

Stay safe

Maria Theoharous

Dearest Gillian, Anne and Chloe:

You’ve managed to wrassle this online sewing community underneath one umbrella. And many call it home. 

I am honored to have stood next to you, learning from your tenacity and grace.

Thank you for everything—and I do mean EVERYTHING!

Much love to you three,

Denise

I’ve been volunteering for the Sewcialists blog for a year as a copy editor. For my job, I edit technical material, but I was so excited a year ago to see a post about the Sewcialists copy editors and an invitation to participate if interested.

I always wanted to do editing that related to sewing. I had followed the Sewcialists blog casually but I didn’t “know” anyone who worked on it. That quickly changed and I found a very welcoming environment. It was great to have something positive to focus on during uncertain times (presidential election here in the U.S., the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, and the pandemic) last year.

I really appreciate the work that Gillian, Chloe, and Anne did to keep the Sewcialists running. The amount of coordination and planning day after day, week after week, and year after year is incredible. I wish them and the editors the best.

Happy sewing!

Rachel

It feel so surreal to have Sewcialists finish! I don’t think I can really put into words how much everyone here has meant to me. Ya’ll were super supportive in both my ideas and my passion for sewing (insert ugly happy tears here) and that has really meant a lot.

I’m happy I could be one of the many people who have come and contributed into shaping the blog, and thank you for this amazing opportunity. I really won’t forget the time I spent here : )

I can’t wait to see how much this blog further impacts the sewing community, even after it’s end.

See Ya On Insta x D

Chris

I must admit that I am a relative newbie to the Sewcialists team. Let me set the scene: it was December 2020 and I was in a proper COVID slump. I kept trying to tell myself that it was just fine that I couldn’t go into fabric stores because I could still shop online (my growing fabric stash was proof!), but I was definitely missing the connections with other sewists. You know those kinds of connections. The happenstance conversations about what you are making, and what fabric would work best. Or the “ooohhhs” and “ahhhhs” shared over a new fabric release from Ruby Star Society. I had followed the Sewcialists for a long time. Reading. Learning. Listening in on conversations. But not commenting. I’ll admit. It wasn’t exactly a dialogue. And then I read a post that posed a question to the community in that incredibly kind Sewcialist way that includes a gentle nudge: Why the heck aren’t you people commenting? Where is the engagement? The dialogue? The back and forth? All excellent questions. Why wasn’t I? 

I reached out, and it was almost instant. Gillian, Anne and Chloe wrapped around me like a lovely warm blanket on a cold, rainy night. What I imagined might be a difficult road to becoming part of an online sewing community was…easy! Sew easy! (Sorry…just had to). Gillian asked “what might I want to do?” The choice was mine! I could do nothing, and just be friends. I could take a wee step forward and get involved in copyediting. I could write a guest post or perhaps even think about becoming an editor in a few months! So many possibilities! Being in the background is a bit more my jam and so copyediting it was, and I entered into an incredibly organized system for getting work done. But it wasn’t cold like a machine. It was full of warmth and friendly banter and a collective sense of looking out for one another. Gillian, Anne and Chloe had truly built a team – the team was not just a bunch of individuals who worked on the same project at the same time but rather a group of people who felt connected to one another and shared a sense of solidarity in the task at hand. The work was fun! The work was important! The work was full of joy and passion! And there was so much sewing talk! Squee! We were all in it together, along with the wonderful Sewcialists sewing community who read, commented, guest wrote, hashtagged (is that a word?!) and more. 

A huge shout out goes to this incredible leadership team for making Sewcialists what it was and what it will always be…and an extra warm fuzzy straight from me to Anne who, as lead of the copyediting team, spent countless hours answering my nearly unending nerdy questions, and to Gillian who convinced me to dive into the online sewing community with both feet and continues to foster so many amazing connections. Much love to you all!

Rebecca

As someone who has been the subject of a surprise appreciation post on this blog before, it’s only fitting that I get to contribute to one now!  I am so happy to know Chloe, Anne, and Gillian- the combination of all of their strength and kindness has been such a pure kind of pleasure.  Who, in life, gets the chance to work with such intelligent and discerning individuals on what is essentially a passion project?  <This lucky gal, that’s who!!> 
Chloe is wonderfully frank, and open, and up for anything.  She’s such a fun person to collaborate with on a post, or to frantically ask, “What on earth should I feed my kids today?!!?” (And now I know what steamboat is 😉 She’s a kindly casual voice of reason, and when she sent me a smallish vat of Vegemite in our SewcialistsSnackSwapTM, I excused it, because she also included a beautiful apron and a calendar of Australian animals that my son instantly adopted.  I love her openness to exploring pattern adjustments, and willingness to do what I say <evil laughter>  Kidding! 😉

Anne shares a quality I also admire in Chloe- being able to keep a steady head in waters-that-require-thinking-about-before-jumping-in.  She excuses my penchant for haphazard dashes, can wield her Copy-Editor’s red pencil like a sword, and make my words sound like I wanted them to in my head.  And not only that, she can call me out when I make mistakes, help me correct them, and all the while, do it with kindness.  I’ve listened to so many of her a capella folk music mixes that my Spotify has permanently altered my algorithm, and her knitted mitten pattern may be the only thing that eventually leads me to take up a pair of needles.  

Gillian is, quite simply, magnetically magical.  Every single time I have pitched a story idea, their answer is “Yes!!!!  Amazing!!!!”  She’s unfailingly supportive, regardless of what is going on in their life.  Anytime I’ve had a question about kid-schooling-stuff, she was right there with suggestions.  (Invaluable this past year, frankly.) Gillian has a wonderful gift, a feeling of charismatic joy, and it’s catching.  Even when just randomly gossiping, never ever was it negative- and that’s a very rare thing, to be sure.  I know that whatever she chooses to do next, they’ll succeed at, and I can’t wait to cheer them on!
Thank you, Sewcialists Editorial Team, for everything!!  I have treasured every moment of this experience, and feel so lucky to have been able to play a small part.

Gabby

Chloe, Anne, and Gillian created a hyper-inclusive, safe environment to inspire, support, and celebrate sewists everywhere. There was nothing like Sewcialists before Sewcialists, and it is really sad to see it going on hiatus (because, I hope, this is not “goodbye” but “see you later”). I hope that as this chapter ends, the spirit of Sewcialists will continue to inspire inclusivity in the sewing community. Thank you Chloe, Anne, and Gillian for all these amazing years. I am incredibly proud to have been a small part of this amazing endeavor and deeply grateful to have had the chance to work with such an awesome group of people.

Paula

I’ve been a part of the Sewcialists team for two years now.  It’s been such a great group to work with behind the scenes in large part because of the leadership of Anne, Chloe and Gillian.  They have always been super supportive, whether it’s jumping in to answer questions about the minutiae of copy-editing, checking in with everyone on one of our main Slack channels, DMing a private thank-you message or offering opportunities for everyone to participate and have their voice heard.  It’s not easy running an organization with about 20 people and Anne, Chloe and Gillian have done so with grace.  I have really enjoyed being a part of the Sewcialists—thank you Anne, Chloe and Gillian for all of the work that you’ve put into creating the community behind the scenes!

Kathryn