Find Your Sewing Mates
Can we talk about where you find your sewing friends? Sewing is really a solo adventure - the sewing machine is at home, the tools are at home, the fabric is at home, and the garment fitting happens at home. Sometimes, when you need something, you find yourself at the local fabric store and you can see those other people who also like all the sewing things, how to you make them your friends?
Sewing friends may not be your same age, my first sewing friends were my mother and grandmother. I tried to make people in my own age group into sewing friends by encouraging them to sew and letting them visit my sewing space… to varying degrees of success. I took classes over the years, sometimes roping existing friends, who didn’t identify themselves as sewers, into coming along and hoped that they would become my sewing friends. As a teen, I worked in a fabric store selling fabric and talking sewing, the ladies I worked with came to my wedding years later as friends. In my working life, I sold people sewing machines, taught them to use their machines, encouraged them in their sewing projects and they were my sewing chums, which was very successful, until I changed location. The one very successful way to find other sewing enthusiasts is to find a guild or group of other sewists or quilters or fiber artists - I belong to the American Sewing Guild. How I wish I could have found these wonderful people years ago, in the many different communities I’ve called home.
The friends I’ve met in my sewing guild are wonderfully creative and so supportive. I can’t tell you how much I have learned from these stitchers. Some identify as quilters, some focus on clothing like I do, some make bags, some finish machine embroidery projects, and some love to do service sewing projects. No, we are not the same age nor do we all have the same sewing abilities, but we do share a love of all things sewing. I have participated in sewing retreats with this sewing crew. I have travelled with some of these friends to the Sewing & Stitchery Expo in Puyallup, Washington (at least 3 times now) where I’ve met even more sewing friends. We even made it through the Great Pause (the year of Covid19) via Zoom meetings. The real benefit of finding your sewing friends is that there is someone for you to learn from and to share your passion with.
Keep sewing friends!