(2:00 – 6:35) She begins the conversation by explaining that she learned to sew with her grandmother’s basement sewing machine, using fabric from her grandma’s (who she never met) magical craft cupboard. This cupboard held all of her deceased grandmother’s scraps, thread, etc., and inspired her with her grandmother’s spiritual presence. In high school, she wanted to learn to sew clothes and created her first 1950s-style dress. She’s always been drawn to vintage silhouettes creating her first des...
Mar 02, 2023•35 min•Ep. 54
Sarah Ramberg worked for an environmental engineering and consulting firm for 15 years. After being laid off in 2017, she decided to turn her passion for sewing with flannel and upcycling into a full-time career. Sarah was bitten by the antiquing, thrifting, and garage sale bug when she was in Junior High. Today, she feels a fundamental need to repurpose and recycle broken and neglected items in lieu of buying new things whenever possible. She describes upcycling as taking something that already...
Feb 16, 2023•31 min•Ep. 53
A wrinkled dress changed the trajectory of Brooks Ann's career. It all began her senior year at Centenary College, where she was a theater major. She had been cast in a play and was behind the stage when the head of the department, “a brilliant, but grumpy old man,” noticed her dress was wrinkled he sent her off to iron it. When she confessed, she’d never ironed before, he assigned her—against her will—to work with him in the costume shop for the next production. “I unexpectedly just had a total...
Feb 02, 2023•49 min•Ep. 52
A lifetime learner and prolific entrepreneur, Carina Gardner learned to sew by sneaking downstairs and using her mom’s sewing machine to create Barbie clothes from fabric scraps. As time went on, she found herself in the scrapbooking world at a time when scrapbooking crossed over into fabric. The first fabric company she designed for was Northcott. She also designed a fabric line for Riley Blake, who was so impressed, it started producing a variety of Carina Gardner-branded products. According t...
Jan 19, 2023•34 min•Ep. 51
Sue O’Very Pruitt’s love of sewing began very early and has taken her to places near and far. She went from designing dresses for her Barbie doll at six years old to creating customers at Busch Gardens when she graduated college. After leaving Busch Gardens, she created costumes on a cruise ship for six months, before going on to become lead designer for a leather manufacturing company in China. While there, she designed leather cases for Verizon, and small leather goods for Hartman Luggage, Nau...
Jan 05, 2023•30 min•Ep. 50
Carson Converse is not a minimalist by nature, although she does value simplicity. She also loves doing intricate detail. She describes her process as reductive art because she often starts by throwing a lot of fabric and inspirational images on the wall and then expanding and contracting until the piece feels quiet and still. In her own words, “I want to give the viewer kind of a moment of stillness, maybe an opportunity to catch their breath.” In her work, she likes to shine a light on the wom...
Dec 22, 2022•34 min•Ep. 49
In this special episode, you’re going to meet seven special organizations…charities that use sewing or quilting to care for people who are struggling because of where they live, the health burdens they carry, or injuries they sustained in service to our country. Come with us as we meet the extraordinary who care for the exceptional. :37 Our first visit is with Carla Triemar of Quilts Beyond Borders who has handed out more than 30,000 quilts worldwide in the last 15 years. www.Quiltsbeyondborders...
Dec 08, 2022•43 min•Ep. 48
Experience the Houston Quilt Festival through this episode chock full of personal and informative conversations. We meet BERNINA educators from the exhibit hall stage – Connie Fanders, Amanda Murphy, and Sylvain Bergeron. Show prize winners Angela Petrocelli (grand prize winner), Debbie Corbett, Sue Sherman and Kestral Michaud describe in detail their award-winning quilts. Listen to class instructors Gail Yellen and Pam Mahshie as they talk about the classes they conducted. Then, Bob Ruggiero, V...
Nov 24, 2022•44 min•Ep. 47
Linnca Stevens is the co-founder of The Sewing Labs – a non-profit in Kansas City, MO whose mission is to create a community and teach sewing toward employment, entrepreneurship, and enrichment. Hear Linnca’s biographical journey toward where she is today and why she started the Sewing Labs. Her grandmother Margaret, a Swedish immigrant taught her to sew and as a young child, Linnca was eager to learn! Enjoying making several types of garments, she works with mixed fabrics and recently created a...
Nov 10, 2022•31 min•Ep. 46
Tula Pink grew up in California, graduated from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and worked briefly as an exhibit designer for museums in SoCal. She eventually joined the music industry as an Art Director designing album covers for numerous notable artists. After about 5 years, she left her job… and California…landing in the Midwest. Tula's main function in life is fabric design which she says she lives for. Her signature designs have been adapted to fabrics, woven ribbons, paper pr...
Oct 27, 2022•44 min•Ep. 45
Maker, quilter, knitter, spinner, and painter, Leanne Pressly is the founder and CEO of Stitchcraft Marketing, which she launched in 2009. Leanne also hosts the podcast, Business of Craft. She is a certified consultant with a Colorado Small Business Development Center, where she consults with new entrepreneurs in a variety of businesses.Be sure to subscribe to, review and rate this podcast on your favorite platform…and visit our website sewandsopodcast.com for more information about today’s and ...
Oct 13, 2022•29 min•Ep. 44
Cosplay, the art of combining costume and role play, grew out of the practice of costuming at science fiction conventions. Over the past couple of decades, it has really taken off and become its own subculture. Desi believes cosplay can be inspired by Japanese anime characters, a Western comic book character, a Disney character, whatever inspires you. “It's literally just, I love this character so much that I want to express my love by actually dressing up as them.” Desi was a huge Sailor Moon f...
Sep 29, 2022•23 min•Ep. 43
Although Teresa comes from generations of makers, she was the first to pursue quilting as a career when she, as she puts it, “stumbled into the quilting industry.” It began in 2011 when she joined the crew at the Fabric Shop Network and then became editor of Websense magazine. Teresa started out making garments using patterns from The Big Four. From there she discovered Indie pattern makers and vintage patterns, and really started working with non-traditional fabrics like painted canvas and doub...
Sep 15, 2022•33 min•Ep. 42
While at the University of Alabama, Leah Kate got a lot of experience with leotards, both as a dancer and as part of the costume department. What she found was that rarely did they properly fit all women’s body types. Knowing that one of the first rules of dancewear is that it should enhance movement, not burden it, she set out to create styles that were functional, comfortable, and fashionable. Within her first eight months, she was featured at two sold-out shows at New York Fashion Week. Leah’...
Sep 01, 2022•54 min•Ep. 41
When HollyAnne was caring for her babies and in the throes of post-partum depression, quilting was what she did to “feed her soul,” and her online quilting community was her soft place to land. Once she discovered modern and modern-traditional quilting, she quickly fell down the rabbit hole, and upon watching a free motion quilting class online, her passion took on a life of its own. “Something about it really spoke to my soul. It really reminded me of the motion of brushstrokes and Impressionis...
Aug 18, 2022•37 min•Ep. 40
This is your full access pass to the exclusive/annual BERNINA dealer conference – BERNINA University. Join us in Palm Springs, CA for this 53rd gathering of BERNINA dealers, BERNINA partners and BERNINA staff from both BERNINA of America and BERNINA International – Switzerland and beyond. Hear about the brand-new products BERNINA is unveiling in 2022 and experience the immediate reactions from the attendees. Learn what it takes to produce an event of this magnitude. Hear about the new product de...
Aug 04, 2022•38 min•Ep. 39
Make time to settle in for the duration of this fascinating conversation with Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably. Learn how Kaffe chose his name, about how a chance meeting on a train changed his life, and about the three women that had a profound effect on him and his career. Hear the story of Kaffe and Brandon’s worlds combining and the genesis of an enduring partnership. And then there are the inspirations, their work with Oxfam, the famous exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, visions i...
Jul 21, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 38
Michelle Morris began re-fashioning long before it became a trend. Growing up, her family didn’t have a lot of money, so she was always doing something to breathe new life into second-hand clothes, or her own clothes. A major influence for Michelle was her first Home Economics teacher who took her under her wing. Today, a sewing influencer herself, Michelle is known for her bold and unusual prints, her ability to mix and match those prints, and her denim creations. She shares her evolution with ...
Jul 07, 2022•25 min•Ep. 37
Although not a common combination, Mae’s father was a career Marine and an avid sewist. A direct descendant of Betsy Ross, he was born into a family of sewists, including his mother and grandmother. Mae grew up watching her father create quilts on his BERNINA machine and it was his love of sewing that inspired her to start sewing at the age of six. Mae was nine when her mother caught her cutting up her skirts and enrolled her in sewing school. Even as a child, Mae was frustrated by the “by the b...
Jun 23, 2022•28 min•Ep. 36
Bill Schroeder III has been around quilting since he was a young boy selling buttons at their AQS booth at the Quilt Show in his hometown of Paducah, KY. When his grandparents launched the AQS Quilt Contest in 1985, it was the first contest in the industry to award a $10,000 prize. When Meredith and Bill Schroeder started hosting Quilt Week 36 years ago, young Bill was right there helping his dad hang signs. When his family decided to sell the business, he and his brother-in-law James went in 50...
Jun 09, 2022•26 min•Ep. 35
The conversation begins with Rachael Barr, Curator of the National Quilt Museum. She talks about the history of the museum, its mission and the behind-the-scenes activities involved in bringing an exhibition to life. One current exhibit is “New Quilts from an Old Favorite: Shakespeare 2022”. This competition challenges quiltmakers from around the world to create an innovative quilt based on a specific traditional pattern. Each artist brings the magic of storytelling to life through their own cre...
May 26, 2022•44 min•Ep. 34
Be sure to subscribe to, review and rate this podcast on your favorite platform…and visit our website sewandsopodcast.com for more information about today’s and all of our Guests.
May 12, 2022•40 min•Ep. 33
What began as just a hobby in Mimi's Los Angeles home in 2012 blossomed into an international brand. She’s achieved a daily engagement of more than 3.2 million followers across all social media platforms, 22 million pageviews and 2.2 million unique visitors annually on her blog and courses on DIY. But her love of sewing started long before that. Mimi began sewing when she was twelve, taking apart clothes, and figuring out how to put them back together again. She didn’t realize that she was teach...
Apr 28, 2022•45 min•Ep. 32
Sarah’s love of sewing began when she was a young girl growing up in New Zealand. Her first creation? A bean bag frog. As she grew older, her passion for sewing grew and Sarah eventually studied fashion, design, and garment construction. Her talent led her to BERNINA. She shares what it’s like to work for a family-owned company, how everyone looks out for each other, and how she can go into any BERNINA store anywhere in the world and be welcomed like family. “It really is quite unique.” (1:57-10...
Apr 14, 2022•42 min•Ep. 31
As a young girl, Jean would look at the moon at night and dream of working for NASA. That dream came true when she became one of 18 seamstresses that built (sewed), created, and repaired thermal protection, flight hardware, and parachutes. This dedicated team of women dubbed themselves the Sew Sisters. Jean felt that getting her initial interview with NASA was a miracle. “The second time Kennedy Space Center came on the caller ID, I thought somebody was playing a cruel joke.” It was no joke. Jea...
Mar 31, 2022•48 min•Ep. 30
As the conversation begins, we learn about the individual journeys of Christa and Aaronica, and how sewing has influenced each of their lives. Christy, a plus-size sewist herself and daughter of a tailor, grew up around sewing, and notes that the sewing industry has adapted over the years to be more accommodating to sewists of all sizes. Although she sewed on and off since a young age, Aaronica’s real passion for sewing started when she was pregnant with her second child. For her, quilting is on...
Mar 17, 2022•49 min•Ep. 29
SHOW NOTES: (1:50) Joe takes us through his early work with his father and his easily found interest in the studios. He talks about entertainment and fashion and how these two industries merged for him. (3:13) Joe meets Mr. Spock on the set of Star Trek. It’s this meeting that led to Joe’s lifelong career. His courage and moxie led the way…with a little help from his friends! (9:00) Learn about the beginning and early days of Vecchiarelli Brothers. (10:40) Joe initially knew nothing about fashio...
Mar 03, 2022•42 min•Ep. 28
Born in the United Kingdom, Justine began her first career as a model at 16. From created performance art costumes for artists, plays, and television commercials while earning her master’s degree in Design at the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School. Seymour designed the wardrobe for the Apple TV+ adaptation of The Mosquito Coast. Her award-winning costume design in the Netflix hit miniseries Unorthodox, was nominated for an Emmy and won the German TV Award for Best Costume Designer. Sh...
Feb 17, 2022•45 min•Ep. 27
After living in the United States for seven years, Marisa and her husband moved back to Spain in the late 1990s to help her parents with their sewing machine business. While working at the store, she and her sister introduced quilting to help modernize the business. Marisa also managed the store and taught sewing before returning to the United States in 2019. It was while she was in Spain that Marisa discovered her love of free motion quilting. Although she’s been quilting for the past 22 years,...
Feb 03, 2022•27 min•Ep. 26
As a former social worker with zero art experience, Kelly Rae picked up her first paintbrush at age 30 - that's when everything started to change. Although she had been collaging and card making at home after work, it was when she started adding painting to her cards and scrapbooking that Kelly’s passion ignited. She explains painting brought her what she was craving: healing, unburdened joy, and awakening. Kelly Rae started blogging about her process, and before long, her cards turned into pain...
Jan 20, 2022•29 min•Ep. 25
