Creative Luxury

Recently, I had the good fortune to "inherit" a lot of fabric from Peter's mother, who was moving. And I mean a LOT of fabric. Bags of it. She, like many of us who sew and craft, always had another project in mind, and to her detriment for a long time she had plenty of room to store her stash and over 80 years to collect it.

What this windfall has done for me is opened new doors. When I purchase fabric, I do so carefully and selectively, and the fabrics and designers I love are relatively expensive. I usually purchase and sew with a market or show in mind. Now, with all of this new fabric, even though most of it is not what I would have chosen, I am free to experiment, and luckily I have daughters who always love things that I make even if they aren't perfect, so I have a ready test market for new things I try.

Last week's experiment was a new style of half apron and the recipient was my daughter Becca. Her husband immediately pointed out that he does most of the cooking, so I'm starting one for him tomorrow, putting it together in a slightly different manner. Then one for Liz and Carl, to make use of some fabric scraps from making them napkins and placemats...though their patchwork may be different in size. While the patchwork on these aprons is relatively time intensive, it makes good use of my generous store of little pieces that are "too pretty to waste".

Fabric Scraps..."Too Pretty to Waste"

I am a lover of all things fabric, and have been as long as I remember. I like seeking it out, purchasing it, laundering it (in Seventh Generation detergent), ironing it (well, as long as the piece isn't too many yards..), rolling it and adding it to my stash. I also love the little pieces left over when a project is completed, and save every bit of worthwhile size, finding them "too pretty to waste".

My daughter Becca, who makes brilliant hats and quilts (check out her barn swallow motif on http://flyinghen.blogspot.com/), recently asked me to bring her some scraps. "No problem," I thought, since I have so many. But then she asked specifically if I could spare a scrap of a green vine print designed by Densye Schmidt for Free Spirit's "Flea Market Fancy". I paused for a minute, remembered she is my daughter, after all, and agreed to share...Some fabrics, I think, are even more beautiful as little pieces than they are as yardage. This lovely print is, and Becca is also in love with it, and has even spotted it used in quilts in magazines. Another print which I treasure every little piece of is by Mary Engelbreit and has little girls reading books on it. One little fragment left over from making a child's apron showed a little girl reading Little House on the Prairie. Oh, how I loved that book! So I took this little piece and recovered one of my aging pincushions.

I keep adding items made from fabric scraps to my product line. I make note cards from fabric scraps, which I call my "Too Pretty to Waste" line. I started making headbands last summer, and those have been very popular. What fascinates people the most is my utilizing scraps to make yo-yo's. I'll blog more about yo-yo's another time, and include instructions, but for now let me say they are really magical...they bring back memories of grandmothers and great aunts, they gather up and change their design identity in the process, and seem to particularly fascinate babies, boys, and men! I have some small table covers in my etsy shop. I also make pins and ponytail holders from yo-yo's, and have made some toys for my grandsons, but haven't listed those yet.

The Great Dog Scarf Enterprise

As spring turned to summer that first year, the flower beds filled in and I filled about every container I had of any kind to bring posies near our doorway, I became more serious about setting out to form some kind of business crafting with fabric.

My first project was boutique dog scarves. I had done no marketing research, had no marketing plan or even a marketing notion. I just loved dogs and sewing and thought it would be a good idea.

I collected marvelous cotton fabrics...toiles, designs of Provence, florals, an out of print line of quilting fabric designed by Susan Sargent, and began making reversible dog scarves/bandanas. My own dogs, Maggie the elderly cocker spaniel and Toby the terrier were happy models. The dogs of neighbors and family provided models of different sizes. They were great, colorful and fun but I found myself hesitating whenever anyone asked me what I was up to these days to say "Oh, I'm making dog scarves".

A few problems began to emerge. The first, and most serious, was that as the scarves were cut out I realized the designs caused a lot of fabric wasteage, too much was falling "on the cutting room floor". The second, my own fault, as that as I went to adjust patterns when I determined one needed to be resized, or have longer ties for tying, is that I tended to save both the old pattern and the new without properly labeling them, so I often ended up confused as to which I should be working with. Finally I consulted with a dog groomer on sizing and found her recommending more scarves for toy sized dogs and some for giant breeds. The tiny scarves ended up being too challenging for my somewhat arthritic hands, and the scarves for giant breeds were so enormous that I knew that there was no way to sell them at the price required to make a profit. So, at a point about 12 dozen bandanas into the process, the enterprise lost its appeal.

While I often feel like I don't care if I never see another of these dog scarves again, and never marketed them to pet shops or grooming parlors, they have ended up being something of a success. Whether at farmer's markets or craft shows I always manage to sell a few. Sometimes people buy them for their dogs, sometimes as kerchiefs, to tie on packages or suitcases or gifts, even as baby bibs. But their greatest benefit to me has been as a marketing tool for the kind of fabrics I use. People love to pour through the bandanas and say "Oh, I love this fabric", "Could you make me placemats out of these fabrics", etc. etc. So the dreaded dog scarf enterprise has been a succcess, in its own way, after all.

Beginings

I am, quite simply, a lover of great fabric. Fabric, like art, has the power to inspire, to evoke memories, to cheer or calm the spirit, to ease troubles. I sew only with fabric I have fallen in love with. I stumble across it, I search it out, and I have almost tireless energy to find out of print favorites. Many of the things I sew incorporate two or more fabrics, either as twin faced or reversible articles, or as embellishments. I also have treasured vintage pieces that come out to add a pocket here, trim there, to add not only color or design but a sense of history.
I grew up in a large Victorian home on Chicago’s North Shore. It was my grandmother’s home, and her parent’s home before that, and so on. It was filled with heirloom furniture and art and also many things of undistinguished ancestry. It was the floral upholstery and wallpaper that left their most indelible impressions on me, though, that and my grandmother’s penchant to paint almost any wooden surface a bright apple green. There was a crazy quilt – she never owned up to its history, and my mother suspected it might have been a rummage sale find – that combined fabrics of various prints, velvets, satins, and that quilt captured my imagination in a very strong way; when I napped under it I’d map it as I fell asleep, sure that I could teach my fingers with my eyes closed to sense the difference between red and blue, floral and stripe. It was there, literally at my grandmother’s knee, that I first learned to sew…to darn socks, to mend, and occasional little pieces of hand sewing. These skills were learned amid her tales of shipwrecks on Lake Michigan, of early settlers and Indians, of family fortunes made and lost. I still dream in chintz.It was by an accident of circumstance that I learned to sew anything else. I was in college, an aspiring actress, and a play came up in which I did not get cast. The theatre had become my new home, and I couldn’t sit out a production, so I volunteered in the costume shop, explaining I could sew on buttons and perhaps turn a hem, nothing more. An hour or two into my first evening there as a volunteer the costume designer told me more was needed of me, and in about 10 minutes, perhaps 15, she showed me how to use a sewing machine and cut a pattern. By the end of the night I’d fashioned a gold doublet. That was my formal sewing instruction.My craft business has its roots in those early experiences, and is inspired also by the beauty of the natural location we are fortunate enough to have surround our country home. I sew in essence because it is my chosen way to do what I love to do, surround myself with fine fabric. I believe fabric can have tremendous effect and appeal, and I have become a “fabric hound”, collector, aficionado. I find fabric in many places, and search long and hard to find just what I am looking for. Some of the fabrics I select are by contemporary designers, and I love to use fabrics designed by Vermont artists April Cornell and Susan Sargent. Many of the fabrics I select are out of print or vintage pieces. I have a particular fondness for French and Provence designs, and you will see them frequently in my work.

Please visit my shop anytime at http://afterall.etsy.com/