About Me

 If my faint childhood memory is correct, it was Christmas 1985 when I picked up a sewing needle for the first time. I received a Cabbage Patch doll that year and I wanted to make clothes for her. I have faint memories of sitting on the floor of our living room, surrounded by my doll and some scraps of fabric, and with my little fingers, carefully pushing a needle and thread through two small pieces of fabric. On completing my little project, I went to put it on my doll, when I realized I had accidentally sewn a pouch, not a skirt! I had gone around three edges instead of just the two sides. It was then that my grandmother found me sitting there, with a puzzled look on my face, and she said “here, let me show you.” Always the consummate seamstress, she started me on a path that would be my life’s work. 

There were several projects in my childhood that I stumbled my way through. I began making rag dolls filled with beans, a favorite hobby around age 8 or 9. Because my mother was also an excellent, skilled seamstress, we always had scraps of fabric and a sewing kit around the house. It was a favorite hobby of mine to come home from school and hand stitch together the head, body, and limbs of a doll, made up in a crazy patchwork of fabrics, and always sewn so poorly that the beans inevitably spilled out. But these little dolls were fun to make, and eventually I started bringing my projects to school to work on during recess, sharing the finished product with my friends.

Around age 12, I decided I wanted to make myself a costume fit for royalty, like what I had often seen at the local Renaissance Fair. Of course, I still had no idea how to use a pattern, I barely understood how to use a sewing machine at that time, and I certainly didn’t know how to cut pieces or fit a garment. But I went for it; it was a summer vacation project that I wanted to surprise my mother with. I worked on that dress for weeks, riding my bike down to the craft store to spend my allowance on ribbons and gems with which to bedazzle it. 

Once I decided my clumsy bit of sewing was as good as it was going to get, and was in some sort of wearable condition, I proudly put it on and walked down the hallway to surprise my mother. She was most definitely surprised to see that I had used a special piece of gold toned, fleur-de-lis jacquard yardage that had been saved in the closet for years! Despite being perhaps a little upset that I had (I’ll admit) destroyed her special fabric, I remember her being even more shocked that I had been working on this project for weeks while she was at work during the day. I was showing a real, honest desire to learn how to sew, and she encouraged me from that point on. 

Because my mother frequently sewed for my siblings and I, she would show me what she was doing as she worked on projects. She signed me up for a summer sewing class, where I quickly caught on to how to use a pattern, cut out the pieces, and correctly use a sewing machine. I made two complete jumper style dresses that summer, and they turned out fairly decent for a novice seamstress! 

All throughout high school, a steady stream of creativity produced many Halloween costumes, as well as a series of Victorian inspired bonnets constructed with cardboard, glue, velvet and satin, all highly embellished with stitched on beads, lace and ribbons. I even made my own version of Scarlett O’Hara’s green ruffled bonnet, which she playfully puts on backwards when given to her by Rhett. I began entering these projects into our town fair, where I eventually won a Best in Show award!
 

As a young adult, when I had my first job and started making my own money, I had free reign to pursue all the sewing projects I had dreamed of for years. All the costumes I had seen in film that I wanted to re-create, and all the eras in historical fashion I wanted to explore. It was around age 20 that my pursuit exploded into a consuming passion. I was always working on multiple projects, and with every project I made mistakes, learned, and slowly improved. Above all else, the greatest skill I obtained during this period of time was patience. Sewing takes an enormous amount of patience; the ability to sit still, to focus, to be precise, to do repetitive tasks for hours on end. I believe that without patience, you are far less likely to excel in this craft. 

Naturally, I was encouraged by those around me to pursue fashion design in college, so I entered the fashion design program at California College of the Arts in my early 20’s. This is where my story takes an interesting twist; when I was given my very first design project the first week of school, I sat there with a blank sheet of paper, pencil in hand, and made a terrible realization; I was NOT a designer! For all the years I had been sewing, all the strides I made in my skills as a seamstress, all the passion I had for making beautiful things, all the drawing and painting classes I had taken (and loved) before transferring to CCA, I had done very little actual designing. All my skills had been honed in bringing someone else’s designs to life. I wasn’t even sure if I liked designing! I just wanted to sew, to learn to make patterns and drape on a dress form, I wanted to understand all the technical aspects of fashion.  

I would be lying if I didn’t say that I struggled my way through my fashion program. Though I perhaps wasn’t the best designer, I did gain some valuable skills in creating a collection, selecting fabrics and colors, and how to think abstractly and design “away from the body.” Something that my technical brain had difficulty with. Other students who had minimal sewing knowledge were free to design fantastical creations without being hindered, as I was, with the idea “how does one actually make that?” I eventually graduated with my BFA in Fashion Design with distinction! It seemed my professors had more faith in my talent than I did.

After college I began working for several boutiques as a seamstress and producer of small runs of products. I worked in retro pinup inspired lingerie, corsets, and bridal. I gained a lot of experience in these years in the specialty apparel industry. It was during this time that I realized I truly wanted to work in garment production, rather than design. Production was what I was good at, what I had been doing for years; my brain is more technically oriented. I get excited when I get to figure out a bit of math in my projects, and when I get to engineer a garment in a way that it supports itself. This is the area of fashion that thrive in!

At this point I have been consistently sewing for thirty years of my life, with hardly a break. I am the proprietor of my Etsy shop “Pretty Bird Clothing,” where I have been producing custom fit costumes for the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, since 2016. My shop has given me the opportunity to hone my patternmaking skills, to fit garments to a body that I will never see in person, to source unique replica materials that are difficult to find. All along, I have had my own steady stream of personal sewing projects, mostly historical, with my current favorite eras being Regency and Edwardian.

There is so much more to my life in sewing that I could share, but if you have made it this far, I’d say you’ve read enough! I expect I will continue sewing throughout my life until I can do it no longer; the projects I have created will be my legacy and live beyond my years. I will be happy knowing I have contributed many beautiful things to the world, hopefully to be worn by many future generations.