A long pause

I've been a little pre-occupied the last few months, what with having a baby and moving countries, but life is settling down a little bit and both the baby and I are getting used to each other and we have something that is a nod towards a routine. So I want to pick up this project again and start to move forward with it.

Thank you to those of you that have contacted me via email about this project, I will be following up in due course.

In the mean time I hope to make some kind of progress to report back on each week, please feel free to comment with ideas, encouragment and stories.

Here's to a productive 2009

Tell me your story

In the first instance please complete the questionnaire below and indicate if you are available for follow up research.

If the person that taught you is available and willing it would be fantastic to have their response to the questionnaire too. For those of us that were taught by people that have gone to the great sewing circle in the sky we are too late to ask them these questions, but if you know some of their needlework history then please do add this information in if you wish.

Please answer the questions here as fully and candidly as you can.

About the “age” question – I am trying to get a feel for different eras and how times and sewing trends have changed.

If I get that far I won’t publish any details without consent.

You can copy and paste them into a new document and email them to connecting-threads@hotmail.co.uk

Personal details:

Name

Contact email

When were you born (if you don’t mind me knowing)

Where were you born/grew up?

Are you willing to be interviewed further?

Your needlework background:

What needlework skills do you have? Eg;

• Clothes making
• Quilting
• Patchwork
• Crochet
• Knitting
• Tatting
• etc etc
  

Who taught you these skills?

How old were you when you started?

Why do you sew or needlcraft?

What were/was your first needlework project?

What is your favourite project, or the project you are most proud of?

Have you always done needlework or did you give it up and come back?

Have you taught or inspired anyone else? A friend or family member maybe?

Your story or other comments:

About the Connecting Threads project

Connecting Threads Questionairre.

I want to record the teachers and inspiration for today’s home sewers and needle-workers. This is very much a project in progress but I have a notion that it would make a wonderful book.

I found the Artisans Square forum in February 2008 and participated in the Sewing With A Plan (SWAP) contest. I found new friends and lots of ideas. Over time I noticed that people would often tell stories about how they started sewing or the people that taught and influenced them.

I realised that sewing seems to be a passion that is passed on and shared, in the past passing from generation to generation. However with the increase in mass produced clothes in the last 30 years the home seamstress seems to be in decline. A mum in the 1970s might have learned to sew from her mum but might not have passed the skills to her daughter. Fewer and fewer schools are teaching sewing and home economics so another route for learning is closing down.

Conversely the internet has a vibrant sewing community. Forums and talk boards abound, blogs and review sites, online tutorials and so much more to connect sewers and needle-workers around the world.

Seeing the generation of home-makers that grew up in the first half of the 20^th century and lived by the motto of make-do-and-mend begin to pass from us, I wanted to capture the stories of today’s home seamstresses and needle-workers and the people that taught and inspired them.

My grandmother is 90 something and if I don’t ask these questions soon then I may never hear her story in her own words.

This is how the Connecting Threads project came about.

I want to hear your story and the story of the person that taught or inspired you in your craft and if at all possible the story of the person that inspired them.

While it would be wonderful to see the connection between family members, grandmothers, mothers and daughters (or fathers and sons) I also want stories that represent all the other ways people might have learnt.

Perhaps a great home economics teacher, an adult ed. class or maybe you are one of those amazing people that just decided to learn to sew and taught yourself.

So please tell me your story.

In the first instance please complete the questionnaire here and indicate if you are available for follow up research.

If the person that taught you is available and willing it would be fantastic to have their response to the questionnaire too. For those of us that were taught by people that have gone to the great sewing circle in the sky we are too late to ask them these questions, but if you know some of their needlework history then please do add this information in if you wish.

Please answer the questions here as fully and candidly as you can.

About the “age” question – I am trying to get a feel for different eras and how times and sewing trends have changed.

If I get that far I won’t publish any details without consent.

My story

I have sewn and done some sort of needlecraft since I was very little. My mum taught me to sew but I know that my maternal grandmother and my great aunt were also avid crocheters and knitters. I used to love being taken to visit my great aunt Edie because I would be given her button box to rummage through, that and the fact she used to make me cream soda and ice cream floats.

I started making my own clothes when I was about ten and went through phases of sewing my own clothes on and off until I moved to London in my twenties and really began to sew more and more of my wardrobe. Getting a good fit, having designer clothes at a fraction of the retail price and having something no-one else was wearing were all reasons for my sewing. Imagine having a made to measure Donna Karen wool suit for less than £100.

I made my own wedding dress and more recently have made all my maternity clothes and started sewing for my husband and my soon to arrive baby

In the last three years I haven't done much sewing, but at the beginning of 2008 I discovered I was pregnant. I was inspired to sew my own maternity wardrobe. Through the internet I discovered the Artistans Square, Stitchers Guild sewing forum. I took part in the Sewing With A Plan (SWAP) contest and met many sewers, new friends and shared ideas and stories.

Sewing is now firmly back in my life.

Connecting threads

Connecting Threads is a project to collect together the stories of home sewers and needle crafters.
To ensure that our stories and histories and those of the people that taught and inspired us are recorded.

The project is just beginning and is in its research phase, at some point I hope to be able to collate the stories into a book.