Featuring you: Amy from SewsNBows.com
Hi everyone! I’m happy to introduce my new blog series FEATURING YOU to you guys today! The series starts off with one of my absolute favourite bloggers: Amy from SewsNBows! I came across her blog earlier this year and since then couldn’t stop marvelling at her projects! She’s also been one of my constant readers and always the first one to leave a lovely comment!
Clear the stage for… *dramatic drum roll* …AMY!
Hi! My name is Amy, and I’m the nut who blogs at SewsNBows. I’m surprised and flattered that Charlie invited me over! I’m going to try real hard not to bore you to death 🙂
I have a fashion design degree that I never have used in the “real” world; and I own a small construction company with my husband. He does all the hard stuff, like actually working, and I do all the boring stuff, like payroll & accounting.
Together we created a small human named Bella, who is the best of both of us. I only have 1 kiddo, age 8, but if you’re new to my blog you’ll think I have 4. That’s because my 2 nephews and baby niece live 2 doors down, and our kids pretty much live in both houses. I constantly say,”my kids”,”my boys”, and “my baby”.
I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma, and couldn’t wait to get out. I headed to Southern California to design school when I was 17, graduated a couple years later, and couldn’t wait to get back to Oklahoma! I missed the laid back attitudes, the friendliness, and lets be honest-the cost of living is awesome here! So I’ve been back in Oklahoma every since, but I was craving a creative outlet, especially a couple years after we started our business. Once we were fairly successful, I needed to leave my long time job to work full time at home.
That’s where the blog came in. When I started sewing again, I really needed a lot of help remembering everything I’d forgotten in the last decade. I found a lot of helpful pins on Pinterest, which connected me to sewing blogs. I didn’t even know what a blog was prior to that! The rest was a wrap. I wanted to carve a place out for myself in the online sewing world.
I mostly post my children’s clothing creations, doll outfits, hair bows, and an occasional hilarious craft fail. My readers tend to be sewists as well,since I’m not very diverse, but I have a broad range of sewing blogs friends; from quilters to couture. Of course, I have met some really awesome crafters and mama bloggers too.
Here’s my interview with Charlie!
Q: For how long have you been blogging and why did you decide to start a blog?
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Q: What was your first ever blog post about? How do you feel about it now?
I’m coming up on my 1 year anniversary of blogging on August 31st. My first post was about a cool vintage pattern piece I found inside an not so old pattern envelope. The post was hopelessly boring, and the photo was about 20x too big. I didn’t realize I needed to resize my photos until much later, when a sweet reader emailed me. Please don’t read it. It’s truly awful!
Q: What was the first blog you regularly read?
I came across Sew Can Do, Sew Country Chick, and Threading My Way pretty quickly. I seemed to always end up there when I was googling for a tutorial, and their personalities just seem like people I like in real life. Rachel from Once Upon a Sewing Machine was the first person to reach out to me and show me kindness. It means a lot to new bloggers, it’s like a life jacket when you’re drowning!
Q: How and when did you learn how to sew?
The first time I sewed was on my grandmas lap. We sewed Barbie clothes together, and later, American Girl doll clothes. I’m glad I have a daughter & niece, because sewing little doll things takes me back about 25 years, to the very beginning of my love for fashion and textiles.
Q: What are you doing when you’re not sewing or writing blog posts?
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Q: What does a normal day in your life look like?
When I’m done with work stuff, like accounting, payroll reports, whatever, I have a few hobbies other than sewing & blogging. I spend a lot of time swimming and working in the garden. This summer I’ve taught myself how to can and preserve produce. I’ve been helping my daughter with her soap making business. I go to my nieces baby pageants, and this weekend I took my nephews camping. I live a pretty quiet life, but its never boring! I love being busy, and there’s never enough time to do everything I’d like to.
My daily life is any combo of the above activities, with many cups of coffee in between. Oh, and the phone is ringing the whole time!
Q: Do all of your friends/family know that you are a blogger?
Yes. My whole family supports me, and they all love and encourage me…but they just aren’t into sewing. They make valiant efforts to read it…but it would be like me reading about scuba diving. Not my thing! So I appreciate them so much, but try not to blab about sewing and blogging too much. I save that for my online buddies 🙂
Q: What are you working on at the moment?
So much. I’ll be pattern testing for Once Upon A Sewing Machine & Sew Much Ado this month. Im also a guest at the Sew Many Books series at Nap-Time Creations. I’m dying to sew a Tinny Dress for Flip This Pattern at Francis Suzanne. My friend Gina from Party of Eight: Our Story and I got the pattern around the same time and vowed to sew it up together. I’m never this booked up, and I sort of love it. I feel like a cool kid. When I slow down, I want to learn how to sew those huge fluffy cupcake skirts from chiffon or voile. They use fishing wire in the hem to make it curly…I need this skill for my nieces little pageant dresses…they are gonna break the bank if she keeps wanting to compete!
Q: What is your go to pattern brand?/ Or if you’re not using patterns, what is your favourite tool/technique to work with?
Commercial patterns-KwikSew is my fave, but I use them all. I like KwikSew because the instructions are clear and the illustrations make sense. I use them all though, and have a disgustingly large pattern collection, including a ton of vintage.
I’m digging independent pattern designers online more and more. I like the idea of supporting a small business.
I love patterns from Elegance & Elephants, Figgys, PeekaBoo Pattern shop, BeMyGoth, SewMuch Ado, and Once Upon A Sewing Machine, (coming soon.) there’s a whole nuther’ list of pattern designers I love for doll clothes too!
Q: If you had 500 dollars to spend on your blog/hobby, what would you buy?
Despite my best efforts to destash in July, and continuing this month, I know in my heart that I would buy more fabric and patterns. I’d make a reckless purchase since its free money- maybe get a piece of that Liberty of London floral I’ve been lusting over!
Q: What can we look forward to seeing on your blog in the future?
I have lots of loose plans for the blog. I can’t tell you how soon I’ll get around to any of these things, since I have a fear of commitment; and find I don’t work as well under a deadline.
I’m pushing myself to broaden my scope by sewing with knits and delicates, sewing more women’s wear, and learning to “stone” pageant dresses and sew fishing wire hems.
I’d like to do some vintage pattern giveaways to make room in my sewing room.
I’m working to improve my shabby photography skills. It’s not my area of interest, but it’s a necessary evil.
I plan to write more sewing tutorials, to get more viewers over to my place. They would be simpler techniques, as I still have so much to learn!
In my fantasies, I have lots of cool sponsors and a few ads to bring in a bit of money, along with a line of girl/doll patterns, but that will most likely not form into a plan in the near future. There is a huge level of commitment and work required to earn money blogging. To be quite honest, I’m too selfish to be “beholden” to any companies, and I’m having too much fun now to bother!
Charlie, thanks so much for letting me take up space today!
Hi everyone!
