Ep 119: Guest Katrina Walker - Sewing, Quilting and Spoiled Sheep Yarn

Katrina Walker, an industry sewing educator,  author, and designer, shares her journey into the home sewing industry. Katrina has worked with various brands, including Pfaff and Sulky, and has been featured in magazines and TV shows. She is known for her expertise in silk and wool sewing, as well as her innovative techniques. She also raises sheep that produce wool for her yarn brand, Spoiled Sheep.

Guest Segment Chapters: Note time stamps start at guest segment
00:00 Introduction and Meeting at the Sewing Booth
01:48 Growing Up on a Wheat Farm and Discovering Sewing
06:24 Transitioning from Investment Banking to Sewing
13:42 Winning the National Make It With Wool Contest
20:11 Becoming an Educator for Faf and Other Brands
39:53 Fostering Relationships and Being Genuine in Business
43:05 Finding the Right Sewing Machine for Individual Preferences
44:56 Don't Be Afraid to Use Sergers
01:10:35 Embracing Mistakes and the Learning Process in Sewing
01:14:25 The Joy and Satisfaction of Sewing for Oneself
01:19:53 The Meaningful Connection Between the Maker and the Materials
01:25:46 The Value of Quality Fabrics in Sewing

CHIT CHAT:
Stephanie chats about the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild retreat she went to recently. Creative weekend retreats are a perfect way to schedule sewing (or knitting) time for yourself and to enjoy the experience with like minded makers. 

Chit Chat LInks:

Elizabeth Hartman - Fancy Forest Pattern

Minky Kim - Pumpkins patern

Chicago Modern Quilt Guild

KraeO Yarn: Big Brother in Autumnal

Provisional Cast on

Picot edge hat pattern  at Purl Soho

Untethered & Wanderwise: Female Travel Over 45

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Chapters

• 18:21 [Ad] Untethered & Wanderwise: Female Travel Over 45
• 18:47 (Cont.) Ep 119: Guest Katrina Walker - Sewing, Quilting and Spoiled Sheep Yarn

Transcript

0:01

The guest on today's episode is Katrina Walker, an industry educator, author, and designer. Katrina loves to sew and teach sewing from clothing construction to gorgeous embellishments with machine embroidery. And she's been on TV, craftsy. She's featured on magazines galore, like threads. And most recently, I met her at the H &H America show this past May, where she was at the Sewing machine booth. So hello Katrina. Welcome to the make and decorate podcast Hello. Thank you for having It's such an honor and I just have to say that it was just too funny the way I met you At the sewing booth because you were doing something so fascinating on the machine. It's kind of a newish feature, which we'll talk about Later, but it was sewing on this ribbon like automatically just about and so you started talking about it and then I thought This voice I know it and and then you looked up and I looked at you and I was like Katrina Walker You know, I just turn up. I'm in the darnedest places, you know? It was so awesome. I was so fan girling. So thank you for taking the time even you just took so much time to talk with me and it was so pleasant meeting you in person. Yeah, it's always fun. Because you know, I mean, that's the only downside of teaching so much online and everything is that, you know, I have to remind myself to get out, you know, force myself to go on the road once in a while, just because then you actually get to meet people. That's the fun part of the job, you know. It makes up for all the work. It's a ton of work. So. i'm sure I know it is I just don't even know how you do it all reading reading through all the stuff you do. it's a it's a whole lot. i'm sure, but so yeah you you do have a very interesting story of your journey into the home sewing industry, so I thought, maybe you could share just from like the first days of sewing. To the point of when you actually began your sewing Well, you know, I grew up on a wheat farm in central Eastern Washington. So most people don't realize that Washington state is actually a very large portion, half if not two thirds. Anyway, a very large portion of Washington state, everything east of the Cascade Mountains is actually high desert. And so where I grew up, there's no trees, you know, the evergreen state, it's not very green. Where I grew up, at least not this time of year. I have no idea. Wow. Yeah, most of Washington state, a big chunk of it is actually high desert. And so I grew up on a wheat farm. And that part of the state is also, of course, very hot and very cold, depending on the time of year. where I grew up, well, number one, the nearest grocery store is about 30 miles away. So you don't get out much. And there were five of us in my graduating class. And that's a public high school that was actually three towns full of it. But you know, when it's wheat farming communities, farming families aren't as big as they used to be, and they're pretty spread out. So you just don't have a whole lot of kids. so anyhow, my brother actually only had two in his class clear up until like senior year. then some kids moved in for some inexplicable reason. So at any rate, the point is, this is a part of the world where you can literally get snowed in in the winter time. And so, know, what do you do when you're snowed in? You sew, you cook, you do these things. So when I went, I actually ended up going back east to school. I went to Wellesley College in Massachusetts. And it was kind of funny because, all of my, you know, most of my schoolmates, you know, they came from much different backgrounds than myself. And just like, how do you know how to do all this stuff? It's like, well, I grew up on a farm and there's just nothing else to do. mean, it's like, you better have skills, because otherwise you'll go crazy. You can't just pop off to the mall or go see a movie anytime you feel like it. So anyway, sewing is just something I grew up with. Honestly, I didn't really give it much thought. I mean, I've been using a serger since I think I was 12 years I know I was in junior high, like late junior high when mom bought it. So was sometime in the mid 80s. And luckily for me back then, know, stirrup pants and tunic sweatshirts were a big thing. so, and back then, believe it or not, you could buy fabric just about anywhere. So even like the local, I think it was like a Sprouse Reeds. Anyway, think of it as like a local, say a Target basically. I mean, any kind of like just general goods kind of housewares kind of place. would sell fabric and so was so readily available. And I feel really old saying all these things, anyhow, so I could crank out, buying clothes was more of a challenge because there weren't a of clothing stores, but you could buy fabric. So I had quite the collection of shorts and t -shirts and things that I would whip up on that surger because my mom was afraid of the surger. It was all mine basically. So I actually became more proficient on the sergers than I did on the sewing machine just because that was more readily available. didn't have to wait my turn on that. And like I said, stirrup pants were so in. So I had them in many colors. But anyhow, so I didn't really give it much thought. It was just something you did, something you do. And there was always something that needed to be sewn up. And I'm a clothes horse. I was born that way. so, you know, any opportunity to put more clothes in the closet always makes me happy. So, but then when I graduated from college, I ended up actually like a good Wellesley girl. I went into investment banking. Not sure how I ended up there, but I did. And so then I had, I needed business suits and I needed cocktail dresses. I needed all these things and I'm five foot 10. So it's really hard to find things off the rack when you're in Amazon. And so you, you have to, know, being able to sew was really great because I could whip up really nice looking clothes. At that time I lived in Washington DC. And so like G Street fabrics was, I don't know, maybe a 10, 15 minute drive. was not that far. I basically, know, investment banking is very intense. So if I wasn't at work, I was basically sewing and that was my stress relief. And, you know, over time I realized, you know, I enjoy this a lot more than I enjoy investment banking. And so when I moved back to Washington state, actually, my employment initially was running a 4 -H program over on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. And so 4 -H encompasses a lot of different kinds of things. And so one of the things that I really encouraged during my tenure there running the 4 -H program was textile arts. And it's kind of helped get it kind of a multi kind of a multi, what do I say? Like we did silk dyeing, we did a lot of different things when I was there for, it's kind of part of just a general textile art program to help encourage kids to get more into sewing and more into that sort and I would go to like horse camp, and at horse camp I would teach the kids how to make the, they call them sleazies, but they're hoods to go over the horses to keep their manes nice after you wash them before you go to the show ring. So we would make things, so we'd get the horse kids sewing and the sheep kids sewing, know, covers for their sheep and all these things. So I did my best to introduce clothing and textiles. I had then spent a year teaching HOMEQ. Actually, it's called, these days it's called Family and Consumer Sciences. But if you say Family and Consumer Sciences, not everybody understands what that is. But basically it's HOMEQ, what we used to call HOMEQ. So I spent a year teaching HOMEQ at the local high school. And then they had a levy failure, so I got riffed along with all the other first year teachers. And so I said, heck with this, and I was tired of poverty. And so I went to Seattle, I went to work for Nordstrom, and ended up in product development for Nordstrom. I'd been working on my masters in clothing and textiles during this time. So I started out just helping, I started out as an assistant the technical design department, but then pretty quickly moved into raw materials and was the raw materials liaison for Nordstrom product group for a number of years. And that's the person that you don't get to pick out any of the stuff. Like I don't get to choose fabrics or anything, but when the designers pick it out, they'd bring it to me and it was up to me to correctly identify it, catalog. mean, basically when a garment is made, there's what's called a specification pack or spec pack. And it's like the recipe for that garment. And it lists everything. It has not just the dimensions of the garment itself, but it also has the recipe of, you know, it's X number of meters of this fabric, and it's this thread, and it's this many stitches per inch, and it's, you know, it's this zipper, and this, I mean, it's all in there. So it was my job to make sure that all of that information was accurate for importing things. And then, yeah. So that's kind of the professional side. So then, So then how did it, okay, so then I know this is kind of a long story, my apologies, but it's been a very strange, it's been a long strange path. Yeah, well, it's been a long strange path, because you look back through your life and sometimes you think, this has been so random, gosh, I have no purpose, but it's funny how serendipity works. And serendipity is actually a lot of hard work and a little bit of You know, but you have to be ready when the door opens, you have to be ready and willing to do whatever it takes to walk through it. I mean, that's just kind of how it works. So while I was running the 4 -H program, I had become, I had gone through training as a clothing and textile advisor for Washington State University. So that was, Washington State University, the clothing and textile advisor program is now a separate organization, but anyhow, at that time it was part of WSU It's like being a master gardener, only it's like a master clothing and textile person. So I'd gone through that training and through that I'd become involved with the Sewing and Stitchery Expo in Puyallup, which at that time was the biggest consumer sewing show in the country. So I'd been involved with that since the late 90s. Anyway, so flash forward, I'm working, Norton Product Group is a raw material liaison, and I decided to enter the National Make It With Wool competition. This was 20 years ago, so this was in 2004, 20 years ago. And at that time I was going through some really personal, I was about to go through a divorce, there were a lot of layoffs going on at Norton's, it was a bad time, okay, it was not, it was a really, really dark time, but I decided I wanted to do the competition. And I was so down financially, I couldn't even afford to buy fabric. But because I worked at Nordstrom Product Group, when the designers would be throwing out the sample pieces, and some of them were up to a meter, but I had some pieces like a quarter of a meter. at any rate, so you needless to say, I dumpster diving at work regularly. And so I had quite the little stash of sample fabrics that were just going to be thrown away. And so that's what I actually made my outfit from. So my jacket, I think I had six different fabrics in my jacket. And then a friend of mine at work donated the black wool for my skirt. I was able to squeeze out a little black bodysuit to wear under the jacket out of some, boiled wool sample, a lightweight boiled wool sample. So anyway, so it was just a really, in fact, actually the most decorative detail, and if I thought of it, I went to grab the jacket, it's in storage above my head here. But the jacket, I ended up putting these diamond inset sleeve design down each sleeve using seminal piecework. And the reason I did that was because I didn't have enough fabric to cut sleeves. So again, I'm tall. It takes a lot of fabric to cut a sleeve. And I just didn't have enough to cut upper sleeves. So after I got done probably crying, I don't cry a lot, but this was a dark time. And it occurred to me, I had seen a Givenchy jacket, a vintage Givenchy jacket that had these, it was like reverse applique with diamonds, but it was grosgrain ribbon that had been folded in the opening to create this diamond effect that was really cool. I'd already chosen a ribbon for a closure that had, the fabrics I was using were all shades of brown. And I'd found a ribbon that had like black diamonds on brown and that was what was my closure anyway. And so it occurred to me I could use seminal piecework to piece a diamond motif and that could be a big strip to go down the center of the upper sleeve and then I could actually probably piece in enough to cut. And that's what I did and it worked out. nice. The seminal is, mean to interrupt you, but it's a type type of beaded decorative beading, right? is a type of quilting piecing. So with seminal, I don't know. I don't know, well now you have to look it up. So seminal piecework is, yeah, so seminal piecework is basically strip piecing. So you do strip piecing and you do it in such a way that then you cut it on the diagonal. So it's actually always on the bias, which can be a bit challenging. okay. I know you've seen it, you just forgot what it was called. I know you've seen it umpteen times. But anyhow, well, like to teach quilters to use, I like sneaking garment construction techniques to quilters and I like making garments sewists use quilting things too. it just kind of goes with my aesthetic. But anyhow, so as it turned out, long story, an even longer story short, I actually ended up winning the National Make It With Wool Contest. with my outfit made of donations and scraps. So that was 20 years ago. So at the same time, like literally within a month or so of officially accepting my award and everything, I'm sitting at my desk at Nordstrom. And again, I'm probably, I mean, I was so thin with the divorce diet, you know, because I just really couldn't afford to eat. So any race, I'm sitting at my desk. This is actually relevant. I was sitting at my desk and I get a call from Joanne Ross who was running, who had started, founded the Sewing Stitchery Expo and then she was still in charge at that time. But she calls me up on my desk and I'd worked for her at times when I lived, still lived in Port Townsend. And anyway, so she calls me up on my desk, she's like, Katrina, we need a model, get down here. I was like, Joanne, I can't model. I mean, I have 30, even when I'm really thin, I have like 39 and a half inch hips. And you may be thinking, well, that's not that big. But remember that models are supposed to be no larger than 36, 26, 36. I know this because yeah, any rate. Because when you're five foot 10, people try to get you to model and you're like, no, I can't, I'm too large, sorry. Yeah, it just, goes with the territory, trust me. But any rate, it just, I'm not built for it. But back then I was really thin. so any rate, so, but it was $400 a day. it paid $400 a day and four days of work, I literally could not afford to say no. I had to take unpaid, I didn't have any time off because I'd been so sick, I'd been sick all the time because of all the stress. So I had to take unpaid time from work, but you know, I was still coming out ahead financially to go down and work. because I, so then, believe me, there is a point here. So I went down. And at that time, so there were six style shows a day. It was grueling. You had 10 changes every 45, so every show was 45 minutes and each model had 10 changes per show. So believe me, it was a grueling, yes, 10 changes. you each, you, everybody had, we each had our own team of dressers to throw the clothes on and off our backs. I mean, it's, it was grueling. I mean, really grueling. It was definitely an interesting introduction to doing runway modeling. But anyhow, so I had my outfit with me because also at the end of the day, after those shows were over, there was a separate style show to help promote the wool contest in the 4-H Kids and That. So I was modeling because I was the new adult winner for the wool contest. I had to model with that too. So then I'd run, jump into that outfit and go run across the fairgrounds to that. So my outfit was there. So that's how I met because of this random modeling gig for which I actually am not physically suited for. I ended up meeting at that time all of the major players in the home sewing industry. know, Patty Palmer has been a great friend and mentor, Dana Bontrager, she had a style show, you know, I modeled for Martha Pullen, for, you know, Linda Lee. mean, basically, anyone who had a pattern line or whatever had a style show. And I worked for all of them. And they found out that I was just faking the whole model thing. but that I really was a sowist. You know, I'm actually a fairly well -educated sowist. And so, and then immediately within, things just happen sometimes. You know, when you're on the bottom, sometimes you bounce, you start bouncing back up. And so, within about a month or two of that, I ended up meeting my second husband, hopefully my, you my last husband, I should say. And, And he made it possible for me to leave Nordstrom and he was self -employed and he gave me the financial space to say, what do you want to do? And I thought, well, you know, it's really kind of nice to be able to work from home if I can. And so that's kind of how I started down the road of, thought, you know, I'd already been doing a lot of sewing education because, know, when I was working for running the 4 -H program, of course I was doing education of all kinds all the time. I still kept doing that on more of a volunteer basis. Even when I was working at Nordstrom, I still was teaching for 4 -H events and for conferences. I kept all that up. I was still in the state clothing and textiles committee for 4 -H. I was still active as a clothing and textile advisor through WSU. So I took a part -time job with quality sewing and vacuum in the Seattle area. and they are the largest, probably still the largest sewing machine dealership probably in the world. And so it just happened to be in the right place at the right time. But anyway, I became part of their educator team. And that's great training. It was great training and it was pretty easy for me because it was pretty much the same stuff. I'd already been doing So even though it seemed kind of random, the reality is when I look back through my life, I realize that all of this has been building on for decades, many, many decades. But officially, it all truly came together and began about 20 years ago. yeah, kind of a long story, but it's... only knew a fraction of it. Yeah, well, and it's like, you know, it's like, how do you really explain it with that? It's hard to make it real condensed. It's so cool. mean, and it's true because you really cannot buy or learn experience or you know what I mean? Like just the years of experience that you get from everything that you've done. And just so for like people that aren't familiar with 4H, it stands for like what husbandry or something and like the four.-H's are head, heart, hands, and health. Yeah. So the 4 -H's are head, heart, hands, and health because you pledge your head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service, and my health to better living for my club, my community, my country, and my world. So 4 -H encompasses thought it was that because there's you show like your animals and and you're cooking and you're so you know what mean? okay. youth development organization that is connected to most states, most if not all states have what's called a land grant university. So in Washington state, that would be Washington State University. In New York, it's Cornell. In California, I think it's UC Davis. Anyway, so every state for the most part has a what they call a land -grant university where the state gave the land to create university and that's what we call cooperative extension comes from. And so back when we were more of an agrarian society then yes, it was much more, but the forage these days really encompass, mean yes, it's still what they call cows, chickens and cooking or whatever. I mean it's like you still have kind of some of the traditional stuff but. but it really are hogs and horses or whatever you wanna call it. These days, you can have a 4 -H club that focuses on anything. The main thing that we're trying to teach the kids, again, it's a youth development organization. We're trying to teach them, they learn record keeping. So they have to set goals. They have to set a goal for themselves. They have to set secondary goals. So when they choose a project, they have to set goals for that project, what they wanna achieve that year. They're supposed to have to keep records of the time they spend working on it, on any expenses, especially like with livestock, obviously, you've got the expense of the animal, you've got all kinds of records involved with it. But even with sewing and things, how much did you buy your fabric for? How much did it cost you to make that dress or whatever? so, yeah, it can be, that can be applied with modern 4 -H. You can have a club that say is scrapbooking. You can have a scrapbooking club, can have photography club, you can have anything. You can have a social media club. But you just have to have projects. You have to set a project or kind of this is our focus and then you set goals for yourself. So it just helps kids learn some, it's supposed to help teach life skills. mean, that's the bottom line, life skills. Be good citizens. That's so great. Yeah. That's, mean, I wish I would. No, I'm glad I asked. I'm glad I asked because I really didn't understand it as the modern thing that it is today. And I really wish that it would get more visibility, actually, because I feel like that type of education is really what 99 % of us do with our lives. right, it is, it's called adulting, right? We're just teaching adulting. like one of things I was heavily involved with when I was doing more work, you know, in the last few years, I used to be, I was on the Washington State 4 -H Fair Board for the state fair for well, well over a decade. I've got a plaque on the wall that says something about it. But anyway, I had to resign once my career got a little bit too hectic. Judging is something that, you know, I've actually been paid to evaluate livestock. I can say that honestly. And I used to help coach the state livestock judging team, which, you know, these are things that I did as a kid that I never thought I would ever do as an adult. So it's been kind of hilarious actually. But yeah, it's kind of funny. There's a lot of people just can't quite picture me standing in an arena full of hogs, but you know, then they've done But at any rate, but like judging, in a judging competition, the kids are taught how to, well number one, for whatever you're judging, there's usually some kind of standard. You know, if it's an animal, there's some kind of breed standard that the ideal animal should look like this. And then you're given four choices and you put them in order from the most desirable to least desirable choice. Not that any of them are bad, but just, you know, what would be the most ideal to the least ideal? And then the kids have to actually, there's that aspect of it. And then we have something called oral reasons. Kids have to get up and give a reasoned argument why they put things in the order they did. And I've had youth psychiatrists tell me, young people, they can't make a reasoned argument until they're 21 or something. I'm just like, I've got 14 -year -old 4 -Hers. who can get up and give you a darn good argument for why they put things in the order they, you know, exactly what their reasoning is. Well, you know, I think these are people that study, I think these are people that study criminals. Well, I mean, I think they're studying, let's not say the best and brightest, okay, you know, then maybe some of them can't make a reason. I don't think some of them can ever make a reasoned argument, so, know, but, or a reasoned decision, but I digress. But anyhow, 4 -H is a great thing. No, it's wonderful. And it's nice that you had made such great contributions to that. it sounds to me as you talk about it that it seemed to be rewarding for you as well, just to, yeah. Yeah. So. a fact that volunteerism is good for you. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And okay, so that's how you got to where you started just doing what you do today, which is a lot. And we'll just kind of touch on some highlights here because you do an awful lot, which is great because it shows that your passion for it clearly shows and it's infectious, which is what I love because it inspires me. You've always inspired me. I've been following you for at least since 2010 or so and I purchased your craftsy class all those years ago with your seams the different seams seam finishes or whatever it is a great class I refer to it a lot and I'm so glad that I have forever you know as many changes as craftsy went through the one great thing that that they did was honor the lifetime access to what you purchased and which is good because I do go back there I mean, you go through like just a simple top stitch all the way through like different types of flat felt seams. the one thing I'll never forget were those amazing silk prairie points. Yeah, those are so cool. argument with my producer about that. Well, not argument per se, but I remember Trisha Waddell is who I worked with. That was my first craftsy class, and it's still my favorite in most ways. And I she was like, prairie points. I'm like, Trisha, I'll make them chic, I promise. So it goes back to the whole quilting thing. Yeah, I'm like, prairie points can be chic. Well, and as I think I mentioned in class, I I got the idea from a Richard Tyler jacket. I it wasn't like, you know, I came up with the idea of using Prairie Points for couture. I mean, I have a Richard Tyler jacket in my personal collection that has Prairie Points along the inside chest pocket. So it's like it wasn't even my idea, you know. I just ran with it. to enc you did, and beautifully, and I love it. And, you know, it is interesting to have that crossover with quilting and clothes sewing, and I do both, and so I appreciate, and I also do borrow stuff that I've learned from, you know, sewing clothing to, especially like hand sewing techniques over to quilting. Because I did learn that you didn't have to make a knot when you're doing hand sewing closures or whatever. You start farther back from it. You put your needle in, then you... Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And then you clip off the tail, and it just gets lost inside. So those are one of those techniques that you use for the rest of your life, as long as you keep sewing, and any type of sewing. So it's really great. And now you are the reason why you were at that H &H show is that for your national educator hat that you wear for and I saw you at the FAF booth. So you want to talk about that. And the thing you could talk also about because I think it's a new feature on one of their machines. You were sewing this ribbon on to fabric, but it was sort of like making this folded really cool, lattice -y curve, know, swizzle kind of design. But go ahead and talk about that. Okay, well, you know, I mentioned that one of my first official jobs, I mean, even though I've been working toward this basically all my life, if I really kind of look at it that way, training for it all my life, I should say, but one of my first official jobs was working for Quality Sewing. And at that time, their primary brand was Pfaff. And I had been a customer of theirs since 1995, which was when I bought my first machine from them, which was actually a serger, because I already had a sewing machine hand me down, but I didn't have a serger. So I bought a serger from them in 1995. And then I bought my first top of the line sewing machine with embroidery in 1998. And so, which I used, of course, to go on and win the wool contest. So I'd already been a customer of theirs, even though I was very young at the time. So when I joined their education team, so that really was kind of my entree into getting involved in a sewing machine world in terms of really staying up to date on all the latest. up to date on the software. So I'd also bought the software clear back in 1998, which trust me is nothing like our software now. I mean, when people when people like, well, you know, they think it's, you know, harder, but I just feel like saying, you know what, this is so easy compared to what it used to be like, it's like, don't know what you're complaining about, because, know, 30 some years ago, a harder here 30 years ago, whatever it is. Right. I mean, literally like placings. I mean, it had a certain amount of tracing ability, but yeah, I mean, you were literally like placing stitch by stitch. yeah, back in the day, but anyhow, so because they're the largest sewing machine dealership, they have, everyone knows them and they have a fair amount of clout. And so that really helped me. So I started teaching, so was teaching on their education team. which gave me a little bit of cache to start teaching. I started teaching for other people, because I really am a wool and silk specialist. Also very active at that time, Maggie Backman, I have to mention Maggie, she was great. She's in her 90s, she's still going strong. I know she runs the assisted living facility where she is, because Maggie is indomitable. Maggie actually had, not only did she, she was a long time vendor at SoExpo in Puyallup. So she had booths there and classes there. So I started teaching for her there. And more importantly, I started teaching for Maggie at the Houston International Quilt Festival. And so where she had her own classroom, her own silk classroom back in those days. And so I started teaching because I do have a background in textile science. So I started teaching silk classes for her, doing silk dyeing. then eventually I was able to get into the machine classrooms and my sewing with silk class sold out for years. And that was just, it was a great run. so anyways, through that, also during this time, I was also going through, going down to Portland to train with Patti Palmer. I promise this will all come to a point. So I was also going down to Portland and I was training in fit with Patti Palmer and Marta Alto. And because I'd met them both, of course modeling for them at the Style Show. So they'd become my mentors. And so I ended up also filming a class called, Will This Fabric Work? Which is still out on DVD with Patti Palmer. So we filmed that at her place down in Portland. And so right around that same time, so I was teaching at Houston that year and I was down, I think I was there early. I think it was during what they call market. At Houston, there's a wholesale show and then there's a retail show. the retail, so wholesale show is the weekend before the retail show. At any rate, so I think for some, I must have started teaching on Monday or something, because I was there early. But anyhow, the point is, that I went down into the F .O booth and having been a long time F .O girl and Viking too. mean, here's the funny thing is I work for SVP and SVP worldwide stands for Singer, Who's Scoring a Viking and Those are the three brands of machines I've always sewn on my whole life. So it's kind of appropriate, you know, because I had a Viking sewing machine for a long time. And of course my first sewing machine I ever sewed on was a Singer, like most people, an old, old Singer. So, and then of course, when I became older, I started buying Faf's for myself. And so I went down to the Faf booth and I said, hey, look, you know, other brands have basically their brand ambassadors. call them now. They didn't call them that back then, but I said, you what is it, you why don't you have the same thing for FAAF? And they were like, well, tell you what, actually we're hiring right now. So why don't you, why don't you come, you know, come and, you know, I think about such and such a time, this will work. Why don't you, you know, come back down and talk to her? I'll tell her that you're waiting. So I ran upstairs, grabbed my brand spanking new DVD, you know, that I'd done with Patty Palmer and, you know, grabbed a few other, you know, items to prove my street cred. and came down and interviewed and sure enough that was 12 years ago. And so I was hired then to also represent FAAF as a national educator and go on the road for them. And during this time I was doing a ton, a lot of magazine work, tons of magazine work. And that's probably my biggest body of work actually. I think I have, I wanna say maybe about 65 articles for the various publications. I need to go back and actually count. It's been a while since I bothered adding it up. threads, I had a column in threads, threads, tons of, mean, pretty much every issue for a while of creative machine embroidery. Sew it all. There used to be a magazine called Stitch. I used to design for Stitch. I do have had a quilt. In love of quilting, I can now honestly say, can say that now. I've been in a quilting magazine. Yeah, that was. Was it last year? I think it was last year. so anyway, that's a lot of my work was in publishing. So thankfully, you know, I had a lot of that kind of stuff to bring down. And anyway, so yeah, so that's how I became an educator for FOTH. Yep, 12 years ago. that was, yeah. And so a lot of it too is just, again, through my publishing work. like, I also have a good relationship with Sulky. because Ellen March, I worked for her for years as one of her designers and authors for all the different magazines that she was editor of. Because she was editor of SoNews and Create a Machine Embroidery and all of those that I wrote for all the time for years. And so then when she went to Silky, then I kind of, know, trotted along after her and started doing things for Silky. you know, it's like... also have a TV show on PBS? Is that the same Ellen I know? OK. So it all. Yes. Yeah. Yes. See, I've seen you. I have followed you everywhere. I've seen you. Yes. OK. Yeah, yeah. Faf for sew it all. And then and then actually my gig for love did a couple episodes of love of quilting for Faf too. and when it's gone both ways, too. So I also have Serger. like master surgery and master machine embroidery classes I filmed for. Now it's Golden Peak Media, but basically SoNews and all those people. I've got a bunch of, a bunch of stuff for them. so a lot of times if I'm filming for other people, bring Faf along as, you I need a machine anyway. you know, we have this like nice symbiotic relationship where, know, yeah, we all support each other. That's great. I'm just like, now I'm Clover Tool School instructor. Well, I actually first started talking to them about that like eight years ago. I actually went back and looked at my emails. So like eight years ago, I started talking to Clover like, hey, do want me to do some videos for you? I mean, they had a great tool school instructor. mean, he did it for years and years and years. And Steve, she was great. And so it's not like, so I didn't really do anything because, you know, it's like they already had a great instructor, but then a year or two ago, he left the company and I was at VTA, SDTA, which is a big industry, it's an industry wholesale show. So it's not, the general public isn't there. But anyways, so just got to chatting with, you know, the folks at Clover and they were looking for an instructor. So here I am. you know, it's, yeah, so I'm right. seam rippers are the best. their pins and all that stuff. when you're a cross crafter, I mean, that's the thing. I mean, they've got great knitting needles. They've got great sewing tools. So yeah, it's been a great fit. Yeah, and the folks at Clever are just such nice people. So yeah, so I mean, it's kind of a crazy life in that I feel like, sometimes I feel like a race car driver. Like I should be sitting here with like all the patches of my various sponsorships, you know? But it's really just all about people. It's really just all about. know, fostering just like anything else. Be nice to people, you know, foster those relationships. You know, it's kind of, know, how can I instead of, you know, trying to be all for it's like, how can I help you? Like, I think you have great stuff. How can I help you? I mean, I have a great relationship with reliable all my pressing equipment is reliable, you know, and most of which I've bought myself. But, you know, I'm more than happy to promote them because they have great stuff. And again, they're nice people, you know, so it just, you know, you develop these relationships over the years. good, good. Yeah, you have to perform. I mean, you still have to meet your deadlines. You have to perform. You can't just talk. But, you know. right. Right. But I think, like you said, with the people, but also what I notice and what I actually, as a consumer, go for myself is not to be told, you you need this or you should do it this way or, you know, any of that hard sell stuff either. And so like when I saw you at the booth, you weren't even trying to sell me the machine and it ended up me ask, I was asking you all the questions. Like, well, how does that work? And how does this go? And it was just one like blow my mind after the other, which is how I think, you know, you're going to get the most loyal, consumer base and just being genuine and real, because that's what anybody and everybody really just wants. They want that people connection. They don't want to be a number. They don't want to be a sales number. You know what I mean? So Yeah, or they also don't want also yeah, yeah, yeah, so think it's, I mean, I do work a certain number of, you know, I do work a few quilt shows and things, you know, working, as you met me, like in the booth for the company. And it's, always kind of, I'm always laughing to myself because I don't consider myself, I think I'm an adequate salesperson, but I don't think that, but I think of myself as a matchmaker because You know, for me, my sewing machine is like my most treasured object. You know, we live in fire country, so you always think about, you know, what you're gonna throw in the car, you know, if you to evacuate. My sewing machine is pretty much at the top of the list. So, you know, the pictures are all backed up on the cloud somewhere, you know. It's like, but my sewing machine, so to rebuild my wardrobe, I know after the devastation. you know, it's like that's what it's really all about is, and you know, I don't care what brand people sell on, it's like cars. Everyone likes their flavor. You don't try to tell someone that they should sell on a different brand. It's like, if that's what they like, that's what they like. Let them have it. Everybody makes a good one just because this person, otherwise it's like an argument between teenage boys and who makes the best pickups. It's just there's no point in going there. Right, you sew on, whatever you sew on, that's great. I happen to be a F .O girl. That's okay. That doesn't mean that I don't also work with Viking, because I think they're great too. It's like, I have no issue with that. But yeah, but it is nice when you have the fun toys. that's what we talked about earlier is when we met at Expo, or not Expo, sorry, H &H, it all blends together after a while, poor Stephanie. It all blends together after a while. I was using what's called a, it's called a Creative, it's like CEA, Creative Embellishment Attachment. And basically it kind of looks like a UFO, right? Wouldn't you say Stephanie? It kind of looks like a UFO. So this device, this special device, which I'm proud to say only Husqvarna Viking and Faf have this, allows you to actually embroider with beads, yarn, and ribbon. So I was running it at H &H with just ribbon. And well, all brands kind of have what's called a couching foot, which allows you to run like ribbon or yarn or whatever under through the foot. The difference here is that the creative embellishment attachment, it actually positions. the ribbon or beads or yarn as you stitch so that it's, well it's flawless for one thing. But it almost creates, would you say it almost looks like paper quilling, doesn't it? Like just the way it stitches the ribbon, yeah, it's not just flat. yeah, you don't, exactly. Yeah, exactly. It does. it totally does. It totally does. And it's just a running stitch, so. I've actually used that to stitch ribbon. So one of the things I'll do for Foff and sometimes Viking too, actually I just did Viking convention last year, is they'll commission me to do say gowns for upcoming, like when they release a new top line machine, there's usually garments and quilts that represent the new machine. And so oftentimes I'm one of the people who makes those garments to. show off the new machine. so Stephanie got to see that in the H &H booth because most of the garments, not all the garments I think in the booth were actually my work. So just as it happened. But anyhow, point is there was a gown that wasn't there that had the theme. So when they launch a brand new machine, sometimes it'll come out in limited edition colors. They only make a few of those. They have a special plaque and all that And anyway, so this last Viking that was launched, one of the colors was winter white. So I was commissioned to do a gown, or no, that was the FAAF, sorry, it was FAAF, was the previous FAAF convention. But anyway, the point is, winter white. So how do you make a white gown that doesn't look like a wedding dress, right? It's kind of hard, but anyway, so I made a ball gown, and the skirt had... like five layers of tulle. But what I did was I took, because we had pretty big embroidery hoops, I had great big snowflakes. So there were these big ribbon snowflake designs. And actually there was like maybe three different sizes. So what I did was I took the ribbon embroidery and interspersed all of these different snowflakes, sizes, different types of ribbon and all this, and just kind of mix. sprinkled them or interspersed them through all those different layers of tulle. So I mean, so the girl was basically a walking snowfall, a sense, these obviously gigantic snowflakes. But at least it kind of helped to keep it from looking like a total wedding dress time. So it was definitely wintery. But anyway, the point is that what's really cool about that ribbon embroidery is that just a running stitch. So like all those layers of tool, and I definitely kind of held my breath the first one, but all those different layers of tool, I didn't even have to use stabilizer. I just very carefully, very, no I didn't. I very carefully hooped the tool to try to keep it from, you know, because tearing the tool was the big problem. But because it's just a simple running stitch, it just tacks the ribbon down. So it's not like when you have fill stitches, because when you have fill stitches, that's when you need stabilizer. If it's just a straight running stitch, you don't. one. Yeah. Yeah. that's right. that was one of things I love about it is that I can honestly say, because I have a dress to prove it, that you can embroider even on tulle without stabilizer to put that ribbon on there. So it's cool stuff. mean, it's really fun with the creative embellishment. I have to stop and think what it's called. Right, exactly, the CEA. But yeah, so that's really probably the most selfish reason why I work for the sewing machine companies is so that I get the latest and greatest toys. When the new machine comes out here, yeah. The consumers get it first, I will say. So they're really good about consumers actually get it before we do. Like sometimes I'll get shipped a demo machine, like a pre -release, so that I can, if there's a technique that only that machine will do. so I can make the sample garment, but I usually have to give it right back. So they're really good. But once the consumers get theirs, then usually for the educators, then we get our loaner machine. I we do have to give it back eventually, but we just get a loaner. Yeah, a lot of times they're machines that say they've used to train service people on. So it may have been taken apart and put back together again, but I don't care. It's perfectly good machine. No, no. here. Not at all. And it's so cool. It's like always having the latest and greatest with a leased car. But you're getting the latest and greatest of the sewing machine that you kind of might look forward to handing it back in, because now you're going to get this new whatever one of a kind piece of technology that's out on the machine. At one point I thought, you know, how could they even improve on this? I've got like the hover presser foot and the pivot and all this stuff and then I see you with the floating ribbon. It can always get better. Right. We think the same thing. know when people get mad at us sometimes, they get mad like, just bought, I'm just like, well, sorry, you know, it's just like your car, you know, there's features on your car now that you didn't have in 1985 too. You know, it's like, sorry. know, I mean, companies, companies, I mean, that's how they stay in business. You know, if They built one ultimate machine, know, boom, everybody buy it, then you're done, you're out of business. it's just like, I mean, I just tell people, it's just like cars or anything else, you know. Number one, technology's always changing, it's always improving. There's always things that we could do better. Like the latest, the Faficon 2, for example, has an entirely new set of decorative stitches that look like really big hand stitching. They're super beautiful. And I was really surprised that after all these years, they're still bothering to come out with new decorative stitches. And those are sewing stitches, they're not embroidery stitches. So, it's like, even that kind of stuff, the engineers are still like, okay, what other pretty things can we stick on this machine? And now the machines have cameras and projectors to make it easier to position your embroidery and all these different things that they all have. And they borrow from each other. lasers. Yeah, they do. you know, it's all good. You know, as a middle -aged woman whose eyes aren't getting any better, you know, I appreciate a lot of these tools. Right? Right? Exactly. I know. It's like, where's, it's the usual like, where's my reading glasses? Yes. But, you know, you never thought you'd get there in life, but there you are. know. Wait, let's digress for a second. So when I was first told that I would need to wear reading glasses, and I was 45, and then I said, are there, I was like, are there any eye exercises or something to make my eyes stronger so I won't need to shit? She laughed at me. She said. Dream on, honey. Yeah. Yeah. lucky cuz it usually starts at 40 and I was like Okay I think I actually, and I've been nearsighted my whole life, so was like, are you kidding me? I've needed glasses since I was six years old, like really? This sucks. Yeah, exactly. It's like some terrible cosmic joke. but when we get cataracts, Stephanie, when we get cataracts, they'll fix our eyes and we just have to choose whether to be long -sighted or nearsighted again. They will. Yes, I know I had that conversation this year because TMI, OK, I may edit this out, but really quickly. with this whole reading plus the astigmatism contacts, I've been struggling with my contact lens prescription in addition to dry eye, which also makes things blurry, which I had no idea. So I thought, my God, my prescription changed again. And he goes, you're the same. Try this eye drop. Just to make things clearer. So that's a whole other thing too. another thing to think, so here's another option. So it's not perfect, I actually wear, so I also have astigmatism in the whole bit, know, lucky us. I actually wear hard lenses that you sleep in. They're like braces for your eyes. So I don't, you know, these you sleep in. Yeah. think I tried those, but I tried the hard for a second. Yeah, hearts are awful, because they're just awful if you have your eyes open for any real length of time. But these, like I said, you sleep in them. Right? Any particle of dust. yeah. Yeah, well, but like I these you sleep in. And then when you, so I don't have anything right now. So I'm far, I'm now farsighted. Because they basically, yeah, because they fixed my distance vision. But now I have to wear reading glasses. So I forgot to wear them one night. And the next day, when it kind of wore off, I actually was nearsighted again. I'm like, hey, I don't need reading glasses, but I can't see anything else. So you still have to make that choice, even if you have. But I guess with kids, kids that are nearsighted and have vision issues, if they start young enough, they only have to wear them maybe a couple times a week to retain the benefits. I know, I wish I'd known about that back in the day.-huh, -huh, it literally just, they use the same measurement stuff that they do for LASIK. So my optometrist, does LASIK and all that kind of stuff, but yeah, so they use the same measurement tools to create the lens, and yeah, it just reshapes your eyeball. yeah. Interesting. Well, know, it's very important for us who sew and have to do intricate things with eye-hand coordination. So yeah, you don't really know how valuable your vision is until you start having to wear reading glasses. people like us too that, well then you people like us too who have to work on a computer and we're editing film, editing video, and all this stuff. It's just, it's endless. I know. It is. It is endless. Technology is going to kill us all. But then it could also save us with the inventions you're talking about. OK, I'm going to veer us back to the sewing. So sergers, you are also completely proficient beyond in as well. you mentioned Linda Lee, and who I actually learned about some, I took some of her clothing classes and then she really got me excited about getting the serger because of all the stuff that she did on the clothing that wasn't just construction related. It was more like decorative too. So, but I was, I wanted to ask you if there was like one thing you would want your students to take away about using their sergers, what would it be? Because a lot of people are afraid. I was afraid until I really, now I can't live without it. I mean, now it's just like, don't even try to like have me not have a surgery. Right. Well, you know, I mean, think number one, course, would be just don't be afraid. But number two would be, you know, use your serger however you see fit. I mean, sometimes I think people, think it's like they have to make a choice between their serger and their sewing machine. Honestly, it's funny to me that, you know, I now have a serger book and all this. It's not that I'm not, you know, extremely proficient on a serger. am. And I'm very comfortable teaching other people how to use sergers, but I really am more of a sewing machine person. even though, I mean, I do do some of the fancy stuff with a serger and I do, you know, use it for that. But honestly, a lot of time my serger is just doing the most boring basic stuff. You know, it's finishing seam allowances. It's, you know, it's doing a lot of times, you know, I'll sew my garment, but I'll, I'll serge the lining, you know, just to make it faster You know, it's kind of funny, because I do a lot of tailored things. Yeah, mean, there's no reason to have fancy seams or, you you're just popping that lining together. Yeah, and you've already done all your fit adjustments to the garment itself, so you should know what to do to the lining to make it work. But that's just it. I do a lot of tailored garments, so I don't like to necessarily serge the seams themselves because you know, once you surge that, you've lost your ability to do much fit alterations. Unless you're making it smaller, you're kind of stuck. So I'm a big believer in, you know, full size seam allowances and garment projects, except for like I said, but when I get to the lining, you know, I've already worked all that out. And so I have no issue. But also, even if I surge my seams, I'm one of those people that I will actually... And I know this seems counterproductive or way too much work for a lot of people, but I will actually based the seam on my sewing machine first. And just again, so I can double check the fit and there's certain areas like putting a sleeve in when you're putting inserting a sleeve on a surger. Even if you're just doing the cap, you know, we do the method where you just put the cap in and then you search the underarm seam and the side seam in one shot. If you're gonna accidentally slice your garment with your serger cutting blade, it's gonna be when you put the stupid sleeve in. So oftentimes, I will just go ahead and frankly, baste that thing in with my sewing machine, double check that everything looks good, double check that everything fits, and then I'll serge it. Because I mean, I'm not serging the seam, I'm not serging the seam to make it fast. you know, to necessarily do fast construction. I'm a lot more concerned about the quality of the end product than I am with how fast I cranked it out. You know, it's not a race. I'm not gonna win any points or get some kind of pay bonus for, you know, getting it done faster, other than obviously the satisfaction of getting it off my work table. But, you know, I get paid for things to look good. and it needs to fit. You know, if I'm gonna wear it, has to look good when I'm wearing it or else all my street cred is gone. So, because I am my best marketing. so, so I, again, a lot of times, you know, use your serger however you see fit. You know, I think I'm one of those people that I actually lift my serger presser foot when I put my fabric in. There's some people that almost take it like, no, I, you know, they always put the fabric up to the foot, let the serger pull it in. Well, it's easy for the layers to shift when you do it that way. Yes, you can do it that way. Fine. If you like it, do it that way. Go for it. I don't care. But, I choose to do it the other way for my own reasons. And so just think, remember that your serger is your sewing machine's best friend. They are not enemies. They are not at odds. They're like peanut butter and jelly. They go together. They're besties and it's all good. I just think that it's funny how people have these weird relationships with sergers. Or now that I have my serger, I'm only gonna put zippers in with my serger or whatever it is. It's like, fine, whatever. If it makes you happy, I say go for I'm all about sewing happiness. That's what I'm about. Whether it's a serger or sewing machine. Just make yourself happy. So basically, no fear and make yourself happy and use it how you want to use it. That's great. Very, very good. like it. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. only thing you use it for is to surge around the edge of old ratty towels to make washcloths, then by golly, you know what, it's your machine. So. It's too funny. also, okay, let's see. the, yeah, they're really quickly to, I saw you had, a class for decorative embroidery on denim, which I think was probably, I don't know if it is, but it sounds like that could be a really popular, class or topic for Yeah, it's done well for Craftsy. Embroidering denim is one of those things that's like, I think it's lot like machine embroidery in general in the sense that it's easy to do, but it's hard to do well. I mean, machine embroidery is push a button on its stitches, right? And that's kind of how everyone looks at it. But yes, but. You know, it's like, or even driving a car. Yes, it's easy to drive a car, but it's not necessarily as easy to do it well, you know? it's, so embroidering denim, so here's the big secret. So the secret to embroidering denim is that you want to treat it like it's a knit fabric. Because denim is, has a very loose, the way denim is spun, I number one, obviously it's made out of cotton. So cotton, not the world's most stable, stable fiber anyway, it tends to have short staples. It's kind of a soft squishy, not real smooth and regular kind of yarn to begin with. Ring spun is better, but anyway, we won't get into all the technical textile stuff on that. But the point is that here you have a soft, thick yarn that's somewhat loosely woven into a twill. and a twill weave structure has more movement in it than a plain woven structure does. This is all good things for wearing denim because it does have, even though it's a stiff, heavy fabric for the most part, it does have some give to it. Your jeans always fit looser at the end of the day than they did at the beginning of the day. Well, some of the things that make denim great to wear don't necessarily make it great to embroider. And the biggest problem is that it's really easy to get a lot of distortion. So you get what looks like big water ripples around the outside of your embroidery designs things. And that's basically, it is like water ripples because it's displacement. So what happens is when you start putting all those embroidery threads in there, it's literally like a drop of water displacing the water that's already in the cup. And so that's what those ripples are. It's the weave structure making room for yarns that you've added in, in other words, the embroidery thread. So the way that you counterbalance that, number one, you've got to make sure you use enough stabilizer. Number two, big one is you start your fabric. So the secret to embroidering denim really well is to starch the heck out of it before you stitch. So I mean, usually I'll open up, like if I'm doing a denim, I like to embroider my jeans. I embroider a lot of my jeans and I embroider them from the ankle, know, most of the way up my leg, which is a lot because I'm five foot 10. So I open up the, it's usually the inside, whichever seam isn't a flat fell, usually the inside leg seam for some reason. Anyway, whatever seam isn't flat fell, I open that one up. And then I literally will take, sometimes I use my good starch, but for jeans, a lot of times I'll just use Niagara heavy duty from the grocery store. And I I just hose it down. just absolutely soak it in starch and let it dry. And even then, oftentimes my first layer of stabilizer will be a sticky stabilizer. So I'll use like a sticky wash away stabilizer to stick that into the hoop to again, the whole, the whole, the whole, and if you don't have wash away sticky, cause that is the most expensive stabilizer out there. There's other things you can use. You can even use a glue stick and you can use glue stick to stick your denim down to your hoop. But the point is that, and then I'll even do a basting stitch around it. The point is that what you're struggling with with denim is you want to keep that weave structure from moving. And that's why you starch it, you stick it down, you do everything in your power to keep it from shifting around and then you'll get nice looking embroidery. So I mean, that was kind of in a nutshell. You know what that, and there's obviously a little bit more too, but that's in nutshell what that three hour class is about. interesting. That's great because it made me think about something else too that a lot of times people get frustrated with their machines, let's say on something like that, thinking that it's the machine. Or maybe that it's them that they can't do it or whatever and lose confidence. But it's really just like knowing. how to treat the fibers and how to stabilize it and how to, and then your machine will work properly. Exactly 99 % of the time it's your needle the other 1 % of the time it could be the textile yeah so yeah and that's as you know as a sewing it says sewing educator there's times I just want to go beat my head against the wall because I find that a lot of sewists were like or the you know they'll be fixated on whether the stitch is perfectly balanced and perfectly and just like is a strong is a holding everything together okay i'm all for beautiful stitching don't get me wrong you know, let's focus on some more important things. you know, I mean, and like, it's hard for some people to understand that like with machine embroidery, machine embroidery is not supposed to be a balanced stitch. You're supposed to see needle thread on the backside of the fabric. That is correct tension for machine embroidery. And that drives some people absolutely think it all should be, you know, perfectly, you know, balanced. No, it's not supposed to be. That's not how it's supposed to be. So it's kind of funny, but it's the needle. and thread. There you go. Yeah, the thread and have people with a $15 ,000 machine and they don't want to buy a $1 needle. And they're using the cheapest cremiest thread that's 40 years old. It's got dry rot. Because believe it or thread can dry rot. And they want to come in complain about their machine. Or they'll complain you know, well, doesn't, I'm not, my free motion embroidery, free motion drives me crazy. The free motion isn't, you know, it isn't perfect and I'll watch them do it. And there's no nice, there's no nice way to say, well, you're doing it wrong. I mean, you know, it's like free motion is very hard. Free motion is really hard because you have to move, you have to move the speed at which you move the fabric has to be appropriate to the speed at which the machine is sewing. You know, if you're breaking needles, bending needles, if your repair person says that you're dinging your bobbin case, you're doing it wrong, sorry. You know, it's like, I mean, and I understand it's hard, it takes practice, I get it. You I'm not saying that you should feel bad about that, it just means you need more practice. There's nothing wrong with you, you're fine, just practice more. right, exactly. And don't listen to like 500 people in a forum because they're all going to tell you something different. I mean, for me, and I even like before I really knew and understood machines like I do now, I would think, this machine, you know, it's just not working right. And this is terrible. Blah, blah. Well, now I know like, you know, you have clean the lint out every time, for me at least, after every time I use it. mean, the little brush comes out and little threads do get caught in the bobbins and stuff like that. I mean, along with maintaining and then another popular saying is that, this machine does not like this and doesn't like that, like doesn't like this thread or doesn't like this fabric. And it's just that, well, Change your needle. It's not the machine per se, unless there's something that really is wrong with it. it's, yeah, the appropriate needle, the appropriate tension, and learning textiles. I would even originally think that, denim is so strong. It's so thick. It wouldn't need stabilizer. But now that you just described the twill nature of it, it makes perfect sense. It's not stable. Yeah. So treat it like a knit. It's so simple. Yeah. yep. If you just think of it like that, then, yep. It's so good that you are. And that's the other thing, too. These companies do need national educators like that, the people who actually do know these things and that you can teach them so that people can love their machines and enjoy them and create beautiful things. So I'm so glad that I met you. Yeah. that's I mean, the whole goal is for you to enjoy yourself. The whole goal is for you to love, love what you make and, you know, hopefully love your machine too, obviously. But you know, it's yeah, I mean, that's the goal. You should be happy. We want you to be happy. Yeah, of course you can. It's not rocket science. yeah. Well, I love one should ever think, right, well, no one should ever think that because someone's a sewing professional that we don't make mistakes. Are you kidding me? I mean, I'm fond of telling my students, like, I'm a professional because I make bigger mistakes faster than you do, you know, because that's why I learn so much, because I make a lot. I mean, sometimes, and half the time, it's really stupid mistakes because I'm thinking about some, I'm not even paying attention to what I'm doing. I'm thinking about something totally different. You know, I'm designing whatever. project I have coming up when I should be focused on the seam I'm stitching, right? So, you know, don't ever think, just, I really, it saddens me when people, if they make mistake, they think they're not good at it. It's like, holy cow, you know, if I quit because I made a mistake, I never would have got started. It's like, I make dumb mistakes all the time. And it's like, I hope that doesn't actually discourage people. But I mean, I do actually manage to make beautiful things pretty regularly, but it doesn't mean It certainly does not mean no mistakes. It just means learning from your mistakes and accepting that you're human and that it just happens. It happens. And most of the time, you're the only person who's even going to notice. Yes. Your eyes are too close to what you're making a lot of the times. I've even, you know, I have to tell myself that because then sometimes I start getting like, why is this happening? And then I'm thinking I am like, have mere inches away from this. right? When you have the urge to like run up to everyone, they say, that looks beautiful. And you want to say, but look at this mistake I made. You know, it's like, my gosh, why do we do that to ourselves? Like no one will notice. Like, OK, like that my jacket. Well, like the wool, the jacket that won the wool contest, that strip of seminal piecing. I had cut those those strips so that the there would be a diamond point perfectly sent perfectly positioned of course right at the cap of my sleeve right perfectly on one of them I put it in upside down and then I went ahead and went what people don't realize about a lot of commercial jackets is that they're fully they're fully interfaced with fusible interfacing and they do this before the fabrics even cut so you may not realize it but that whole jacket is interfaced At any rate, the point is I had gone ahead and interfaced the upper sleeve before I realized what I'd done. So if you actually knew what you were looking for, one of those strips is upside down. And I did cry. I did cry over that because I had no more fabric. I literally had no fabric. I couldn't, and I won the national contest. No one ever said, did you ever notice that your strip is upside down on one of them? I mean, it's like, so that's the point. Like if you don't point it Mm -hmm. Yeah, yeah. And honestly, if people are looking for things to pick at, they're just, exactly. They need to find another hobby. Yes, yes. So speaking of hobbies, one last thing before I let you go, because I know you're super busy and I wanted to ask you because you do this for a living, like you're the sewing and everything. So do you sew for yourself personally things that are just for you that you enjoy to do keeping it sort of like a hobby for yourself or are there other creative things that you do just for yourself as a hobby? my goodness. Well, the answer to the first part of that is, yeah, the first part is definitely yes. In fact, my biggest frustration is that I almost never have time to so for myself. And then if I do, yeah, if I do, it pretty much has to be related to a class I'm teaching or something because I just, there has to be a excuse for it. like SVP came out with a new, they helped, they worked with Ditto to launch this new Ditto pattern system. And so then it was great because I had the excuse, because I wasn't their official educator, but I was one of only a very small handful of educators who could basically teach it and demo it. So I have my own little Ditto wardrobe that I had an excuse to sew for myself because I got to promote that. So it's always, you know, To be honest, I'm looking forward to retirement because I have so much fabric. I can't wait to actually work my way through it. So yeah, actually given my druthers, I actually do so. I mean, it's like if I have some spare time, because again, I'm a clothes horse. And when I'm working out in public, when I'm teaching at a show or something, I'm usually wearing what I've made. And it's because it's my, I mean, I feel like you need to, you know, you need to walk the You know, if you're saying that, I like to make garments and I'm a fit instructor, all this, and what you're wearing came from Walmart, I just, to me, that's just like, where's your credibility? You know, I mean, if you see me most of the time, I'm not saying always, but most of the time, you know, I've made that jacket. I've probably made the slacks, not always, but probably made the slacks, you know, whatever. I think it's really important. this gorgeous bustier beaded and was that denim? Wait. Yeah. Yeah. I made that to wear on wear on camera for that graph that craft class. Yes. So yeah, so there you go. I mean, but again, it's like, you got to walk the walk. But actually, I never thought I would be a sewing professional because I'm not very I'm not fast. I'm much more of a detail oriented person. Although I have to take that back. Now that I've actually seen other people sew in public, I'm actually a lot faster than most people. But I didn't feel that I was fast enough to make a living at it. I didn't really think about the whole education side of things. I was thinking more custom clothing. Glad I didn't go the custom clothing route. Doing things for marketing campaigns, that's okay, because it's the model's problem she has to get into it. But I'm glad I didn't do custom clothing. Yeah. well I have my sheep, so I can be across the, I swear my sheep are more famous than me, because I'll be somewhere demonstrating a machine and someone will pipe up from the back row. And she has sheep, like sheep are just fascinating people. So I actually do grow, they are, right? Everybody loves sheep. I mean, I love my sheep, don't get me wrong. I I was actually in my fleece barn, so right now, so I actually have all the sheep, there it goes. I actually have a yarn line. I love it. is it that one of those, the measuring tape? Is it one of the measuring tape sheep? it's just a sheep. okay. It's adorable. It's adorable. Yeah. it's awesome. I have a sheep measuring tape. They pull on the tail and that's the... Yeah, I have one of those. But yeah, So I actually have a yarn line and it's actually going to be debuting again soon. It was being sold through local Paradise Fibers, but a friend of mine is launching a very exclusive yarn company called Bougie Knits. It doesn't get much more bougie than my yarn, because all of my yarn is produced by the sheep. So it's like when you buy a bottle of wine and it has where it was grown and the year and all So all of my yarn has the sheep's name on it. It has that shearing number on it. It has all of their information. So you can go online and you can actually see pictures of the sheep that you're knitting or crocheting or weaving or whatever. so, I love it. And what's kind of cool about it is, so right now, So I just shipped all the yarn down to California to her. And so she's going to put it online, but she's also going to be showing it at a lot of shows and selling it in person at shows. So I'll actually be in the booth at Houston this year, representing as the shepherdess, representing the yarn on preview night. So if you're at the Houston International Quilt Festival, come to preview night and you can meet me in the booth with my yarn. But anyhow, So last night, so I'm getting ready to send a new batch to the processor, you know, because we need more inventory in the future and it takes months to get it done. So I was actually skirting a fleece from one of my absolute favorite sheep, Thor, from 2017 and I lost Thor to pneumonia caused by forest fire smoke and dust. He yeah. it was super hot and dry. had, I mean, the smoke, there's been times when the smoke here has been so bad that you can't even see across the road. I mean, you can't see across the yard. It's just terrifying sometimes because even if, because if you have a fire start on your property, you can't even see it. So think about that. You could have a fire start and you don't even know it's there. So yeah, it's terrifying when the smoke is bad. Not just that it's like basically the equivalent of smoking a pack a day, but it's also quite terrifying. any rate, but I really was choked up preparing this fleece for processing, picking out all of, so what I have to do as shepherdess is every single fleece, so every yarn I sell, I have literally had my hands on all of that fiber before it goes to the processor, because I have to hand pick out any vegetation. or poopy bits or anything, sheep or dirty little buggers. So anything that isn't nice, I have to pick out before I send it to the processor. So it usually takes at least an hour per fleece. It's very labor intensive. But anyway, so here I was picking through, it's called skirting. So was Thor's last fleece. And it really choked me up because it's like, I miss him so much. But it makes me, it's really producing the yarn. It certainly, I mean, I'd starve to death if I was relying on that for my income. But it buys dog food for the guardian. We have dogs that protect the flock and it pays for their dog food and the sheep basically support themselves. That's about all it does. They support themselves. And right, right? But it makes it, it's really meaningful. I I have to basically donate my labor, it's meaningful that the sheep, they reach people all over the world. You know what mean? The sheep are like out there, even after they've passed from old age, they're still out there keeping people warm and they're still out there making people smile as they knit and crochet with it. So that's super meaningful to me that, you know, my sheep just, you know, they're out there in the world and they're being loved, you know, even when they're long gone. So that's. I'm gonna keep doing it, you as long as people keep buying the yarn, I'll keep doing it just because it's meaningful, you know, and it's, you know, I love my sheep. the barn through bougie knits. It's going to be called Boozy Knits. So when this podcast comes out, chances are the website will be up. So if they just do a search under Boozy Knits, or you can go to, I'll have a link to it on Spoiled Sheep Yarn. So if you go to spoiledsheep .com, yeah, spoiled sheep, just type in spoiled sheep. You should come to spoiledsheep .com and you can read all of the biographies of my sheep. I love it. dogs and all that good stuff. I've got to update it because we have a new guard dog. I'm a huge animal lover. love dogs. I love sheep. And I know I do want to. my gosh. That's one place too. I keep telling my husband, I'm like, we need to go to the Pacific Northwest because that's, I love the, the furthest North that we got was like Eureka, which is right before Oregon and that redwood forest. just died, but I still need to go. keep going north to Washington state. state, just to brag on our state, Washington is the only state that has, as far as I know, that has temperate, not tropical, but temperate rainforest and desert in the same state. Wow, isn't that amazing? And we have three mountain ranges, or wait, no, we have four mountain ranges. We have the Olympics, the Cascades, the Blues, and the Selkirks. So we have four mountain ranges. You know, we have ocean, we have islands. We actually had our own war with Britain. We had, it was called the Pig War. We actually were at war with Britain at one point. So, over the San Juan Islands, so. Yep, the Pig War. So. So Washington's a great state. It really is. It's a great state. it's on my list to visit. But the sheep and the yarn, I love the way that you're doing that because and to some, know, knitters and people who use this yarn for their projects and crochet like to know that they like to know where the yarn came from. And it's nice to actually put like a, you know, personality to it face. Yeah. yarn. Yeah. Yeah. It has a story. I'd love anything and everything that has a story too. So hence the podcast. there's exactly, exactly. Well, there's so much labor that goes, I mean, it's a lot of labor that just goes into producing the yarn and it's very expensive to produce it. It's a big investment of time and money, but you know, it is meaningful and it takes a lot of labor to create something, you know, from yarn, whether you're knitting or crocheting or weaving, you know, that's a big, so it should be something that's meaningful. You know, I mean, life is short and precious. Why not work with something? with precious materials. I mean, that's kind of my fabric philosophy. I don't have cheap crappy fabric. I mean, I might buy some cotton broadcloth to cut up for kids, you know, for teaching classes, but that's certainly not anything I buy for myself. You know, my fabric collection is pretty prime. Well, because my time is so precious. I know, well, my time is so precious. Why would I spend it on crappy fabric? just, you know. and at this point, too, like, you know, the people who don't do this for a hobby even don't even know quality from non -quality, which is a little sad. And then also, I have to tell you this real quick. I was reading a book and I was talking about the sweater that this girl couldn't afford. And she's like, I mean, really? It, what is it? Just a bunch of yarn. Why is it this expensive? I just started laughing. I know. boy. See, that is what you run into. I mean, even these authors of novels are just like treating yarn like it's, you know, nothing and knitting as old person. Plastic yarn. Yeah. But just the way she said it was just so condescending and yeah. Yeah, we used to sit down and knit it, honey, and we'll see how much, well, I mean, but people have that attitude towards a lot of what we call crafts. know Steph and I, neither of us are really fond of the word craft, but in the way that Americans use it, It's like, you know, mean, I know people who make, who do beautiful quilting, you know, they might have it, you know, I'll be showing someone at work and someone was like, I'll give you $75 for that. It's like, okay. You know, you start adding up and this was actually even in, it was funny, in 4 -H I was talking about how, you know, we have the kids, you know, calculate how much is into it. Well, in the old mindset for sewing, the older generation, mean, not to diss anyone, but the older generation, I can't tell you how many times Well, I used to sell, you just can't save money doing that anymore. And I'm just like, I always say, I'm not making Walmart clothes. Okay, the kind of clothes that I make would cost you thousands of dollars. So yes, I'm actually kind of more or less saving money doing what I do because we're not talking Walmart. Yes, it's cheaper just to buy Walmart clothes. If that's what you want to wear and that's what you want to make, fine, knock yourself out. I have no issue with that, you know? I even think that those generations just took for granted and were just treated so that it was just like, you know, it didn't have value. Right, they had to. Yeah. had to. But see, back then we actually had, we had a textile industry in the United States. We had clothing manufacturing in United States. Yes, we still have some that exists. And yes, people are trying to make more of a comeback. But what people have to understand is that now, so there used to be a lot of, mean, it always kind of makes me laugh when, You know, people make a big deal out of advertising the fabric they're selling as designer dead stock. it's dead stock. It's all dead stock. Unless you're Joanne, I mean, unless you're Joanne or you work with, I mean, you may work in these days, especially in the quilting world. I'm talking more apparel. In the quilting world, yes, they manufacture fabric just for people to cut up into little pieces and sew it back together again. But in the apparel world, a lot of our textiles, unless you're buying direct from a manufacturer, a lot of the, A lot of textiles are dead stock. They are left over from the manufacturing process wherever. Well, so back in the day when again, we had all of those factories and things in the United States, there was a lot of leftover fabric that would then be sold very cheaply, therefore could be resold cheaply, et cetera. Well, like I said, our local kind of general store would have fabric. Walmart used to have fabric, mean, real fabric, not just a little bit. Right. It just was much more readily available and therefore it was cheaper. But it's kind of hard. There was a lady who was really sweet and used to babysit my brother and I when we were little and I remember her sewing all the time and she had a bunch of kids. But anyway, I asked her, I saw her at a funeral, because that's where you see people from home, and I said, are you still sewing? I have fond memories. As a little girl, sew. She says, no. And that's it. She was like, no. She says, you just can't save money doing that anymore. And she says, I did sometimes fabric is like $7 a yard or something, something like that. I mean, I have fabric that's, know, I couldn't even tell her how many times more expensive than that in my stash. You know, I mean, one of my best friends is a weaver, you know, so I mean, her fabric is like $150 a yard or better, you know, and it should be because it's hand woven. the point is, is I just, right? But I mean, it's like, couldn't, I didn't laugh. I was so proud of myself. I said, yeah, I understand. But I mean, to myself, I'm just thinking, that's the thing. She was sewing for a different reason than I sew. I sew for the personal satisfaction. I sew to create something beautiful that fits, know, something beautiful that fits me. it fits, it's fitted. You can make things fit to you that you will never ever get with a commercial ready made. yeah. so we so for different reasons and so that's why you know I mean I would never want to make her feel bad because. You know everyone's reasons for sewing whether it's utility or whatever it's perfectly legitimate you know you do you for sure. You do you. should just do it for joy and not that you have to, which is nice these days that most of us can do it like that. And I and even when I really started taking it seriously, whoops, sorry. I was just gonna say, even when I really started taking it seriously for investment banking, I was kind of doing it out of necessity, but I discovered joy doing it. I mean, not that I always enjoyed it, but you know what I mean? It became more meaningful as I went. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Go ahead, sorry. no, no. But I wanted to mention, I was glad to hear you say that you are detail -oriented and you're not fast because I'm the same way. Like, I can't just pump stuff out really quickly like you see on social media having been done. And I don't feel bad about it at all because, you know, I... I enjoy what I make and I know that it's the details there and the fulfillment is there for me and you know so it's it's it really isn't all about the speed. The faster you are you're not the faster you are is not does that mean you're you're better. No, no. mean, if that's what gives you and I mean, for some people, it's obvious that that's what gives them satisfaction is just cranking stuff out. And that's great. You know, if that's what brings them joy, that's wonderful. But yeah, I mean, again, you know, whatever exactly whatever, you know, pleases you. I mean, I wish, you know, 99 percent of the time when I'm even if I'm something for myself, there's still a deadline in the sense that I have other projects backing up while I'm while I'm making something for myself. So. It's very frustrating that sometimes my clothes aren't made as well as I wish they were simply because I don't have the time. I have to use the super fast construction methods. I have to sometimes use little cheater techniques, so to speak. I have friends who are just horrified of some of the things that I do because they were couturier trained and this, that, the other, but it's like I have to meet my deadlines or I don't get paid. Whereas they're just sewing for pleasure. you know, it just, you're coming from different places and everyone has their own reality, you know, basically. So it's okay. It's okay. something actually tangible finished than just hoping that you will get to it or you start it. And because you're spending too much fickle time on it, when you know how to do it, you know the shortcuts you can take. to, and it still looks like a million bucks, which is also part of that experience. So, you know, it's, kind of like a cool thing, I think. absolutely pretty fabric, pretty fabric. This is kind of the cheater is really plain fabric requires more detail. Like really plain fabric is when you have to really look a lot harder at your embellishment techniques or your seaming techniques or the architectural details of the garment or whatever it is you're sewing, you know, with plain fabric. whereas really beautiful fabric, you can sew the most basic, you know, I remember I made a wrap skirt one time in my early, early 20s. I don't think I'd ever sewn on a waistband before, that's how young I was. And I made this wrap skirt out of this beautiful raw silk, what we call, this is the wrong term, but anyway, this beautiful kind of rustic silk. I got more compliments on that little wrap skirt that was just a wrap skirt. didn't even have the waistband sewn on properly, but you couldn't tell from the outside, but the fabric was beautiful. And so that was a great life lesson I learned very early was that, you know what, if you use really beautiful fabric, you know, it makes up for a lot of, you don't have to sew complicated patterns. You can stick to the same, you know, make yourself a capsule wardrobe basically of some really basic patterns. Learn some basic pattern making so that you can, you know, do some. some different, you know, change from a darted to a princess. But you can use the same darn pattern over and over again and just use really pretty fabric and switch up your seaming techniques. And there you go. You know, you don't have to keep reinventing the wheel. Just use really nice fabric and everything looks beautiful, no matter how simple it is. that's a great tip. Really great. So yeah, I think I could just keep talking to you forever. this does have to end sometime. But I really do thank you so much for taking the time. to come on to my show and it was just such a pleasure to have this opportunity and because you weren't paid for this and I just I'm very very happy that you you know that like like we said earlier I mean you just it's from your heart and you do things out of joy and and you help other people out and I think that it shows and that we're all lucky to have you. in our world. thank you. Thank you. Well, I was honored to be asked. Okay. All right, then this was Katrina Walker and we will have all the links to her website and spoiled sheep and everything in the show notes.