Needle and Thread: Unraveling My Sewing Journey and Its Future
my personal sewing journey from inspiration to my ambitions
When it comes to my first interest in sewing, it was all from my grandma, who taught me how to knit I even joined a knitting after-school class with all the other women but unfortunately, I wasn't able to do that long because of lifts back home. But I knew from a very early age I wasn't going to create something that people both loved and wanted. I wanted people to look and think wow she's so creative. I wish I came up with that or I wish I could do that.
Unfortunately, I got distracted with other passions throughout my teens, like painting, and drawing, because my dad was insanely good at it and comparing yourself to someone so talented at a young age just deafened that interest so I moved on to things I could control and learn to be good at much easier. I had always loved clothes and as we didn’t have much money growing up, I was always trying to find new ways to style things and make the most of what we had.
Being an extremely shy kid, I didn’t really do much with my clothes because I didn’t want to stand out and now that I’ve grown up to be confident with myself, I wish I could have cheered my little self on. Nonetheless, the confidence came from my love of clothes and styling and when I got to the age to buy my own clothes, that’s when the experimenting came. I have done everything to be masculine, really fem, a bit chavy to now all of the people would say either hip or alternative, which personally makes me enjoy the office attire.
Having money and clothes, I didn’t want to fit in with what was fashionable and what was not, I had a boatload more confidence in my late teens and wanted to stand out more. Assert myself into society if you will and I did exactly that. I picked up things and started to style them in different ways but there was still something missing. While styling is a creative skill and it’s something you are born with, I still didn’t feel a sense of achievement with it; it felt easy, which I loved but also didn’t feel passionate about.
To me, being creative means making something from nothing or making your vision come to life and being so unique that no one else could do it and that’s what I wanted. So I bought my first sewing machine and I got cracking. It was a bumpy road at first but I have never felt so connected to a thing and while I am yet to make something from scratch, my ideas are flowing and this has never really happened to me before.
I see many of my friends making and creating things, making money and doing a lot more with their lives. While this is a bonus, I still want to create something because I love to know that others love my work. It’s the highest form of compliment; in my opinion, people love your mind and how it works.
The Future?
While I am still very much in the early stages of my sewing journey, I cannot wait to tell you guys more about it and also see where it goes. In the next couple of weeks, I want to deconstruct and create something entirely new from it, whether it be turning my boyfriend's old utility trousers into a set. I don’t know but that is my goal. To create sustainable, cute and fashionable pieces that all the girls want to wear!