SSP 001: What is Sewing Solutions?

Katie and Aga are stoked to announce their first Sewing Solutions Podcast episode!

In this episode, we discuss the driving forces behind our company. We saw areas within the sewing industry that had big needs....and our goal is to fill those needs! Listen in for the long version, but the short version is....

• Honoring the legacy of sewing, and its history of being handed down through the generations.
  

• Bridging the educational gap between those with sewing knowledge and those with the desire to learn.

• Empowering individuals to create for themselves.

• Valuing sewing for personal empowerment and sustainability.

• Generating a Sewing Movement against consumerism and fast fashion.
  

We go into detail about the values and vision for the company. And provide some actionable steps for sewists who want to expand their skills and be more involved in The Sewing Movement.

Podcast Transcript:

Katie:

So for the people listening and or watching, this episode number one is all focused on what is Sewing Solutions. Because we're a brand new platform. So we figured we would literally start at square one and describe what is our company and what exactly it is that we do.

And it's a complicated answer because there's a lot of things that we do.

So I've broken it down into these three, for lack of a better word pillars, and we're going to talk about them and describe exactly what they are.

So. The number one, and I promise you, I'm not going to like read stuff off the whole episode, but just to get through these pillars, because they're kind of beefy.

Number one is honoring the legacy of sewing and its history of being handed down through the [00:01:00] generations.

And when Aga and I were brainstorming what it is that we wanted our company to be, one of my more visceral, I guess, emotional reactions was towards this idea that sewing historically has been passed down through the generations.

And that's specifically how I learned. I think that's how everybody learns.

Like, it doesn't matter whether you go to design school, like you did Aga, or whether you learn from another seamstress or tailor.

It has to just be handed down through the generations like any other trade or craft.

And there's this disconnect right now because there's a lack of people who know how to do this.

So historically, let's say [00:02:00] my mom's generation or my grandmother's generation, they would have learned from the generation above them.

But as we've gone down the lines of generations, now we no longer have our grandmas and our moms and our aunties and our next door neighbor that we can go knock on their door and say, Hey, can you teach me how to sew this apron or whatever it is you want to learn.

Now we no longer have that resource, that generational resource.

So people are looking online.

And where we stepped in and decided, okay, we can bring that same sense.

We can bring that same, I don't know what to call it. Maybe you can help me Aga, but like, to me, it's like a very emotional thing.

And there's like a lot of pride and like honor that goes into it. And we really wanted our brand and our platform to have that sense.[00:03:00]

Aga:

Well, I think the way that everybody starts, right, is the first kind of taste of sewing that they get is they're being shown something, even if it's a tiny thing.

And that's where a lot of people stop, if they do want more, then they don't know how to find it, or the person they were originally going to is busy doing X, Y, and Z, and now you can't get help.

So it's hard to find that help if you do want to learn more.

So it's just fewer and fewer people that are skilled enough.

And then I think at some point you can also outgrow your teacher.

So maybe a lot of us were taught by our moms or grandmas or another family member, but at some point you've kind of tapped that resource to its extent.

And then like you said, you have to go looking for more [00:04:00] information.

Katie:

And I know that was really hard for me.

When I was trying to learn this craft, it was definitely, I felt like a, a fish kind of swimming upstream, trying to figure out how to get access to this information.

And it's really difficult when you, you don't even know what you don't know. So then how do you go looking for something that you don't know?

That's the missing piece that you need.

Aga:

Yeah, for me it was a little bit different because I was just being fed information.

Katie:

yeah, but didn't you also, I remember you telling me. You know, cause we, we've been besties for a while and we kind of compare our backgrounds quite frequently.

And I remember you even telling me that when you graduated from design school, there were still gaps where you were like, how do I find this information

Aga:

Yeah, it was just very baseline information that I was taught, but if I wanted to excel in, in couture like I did, [00:05:00] was just learning by doing or on the job, but even still, there was just that language barrier between other seamstresses in me.

So it was just kind of taking, taking things apart And seeing how they're made inside kind of self thought.

Katie:

And I feel like we could go down that rabbit hole for a while.

And it's, it's one that we are going to explore.

Um, episode number two is specifically going to be not necessarily about the company, but it's going to be about us. The two co owners.

So we're going to dive deep on that rabbit hole the next one

But in focusing on what exactly sewing solutions is so let's go to pillar number two

So bridging the educational gap between those with sewing knowledge and those with the desire to learn which I do. I do feel like we've, we've, touched on that, that bridging the gap, that there's this kind of, um, [00:06:00] difficult. access to people who have knowledge and people who want to learn. is a pretty big one.

I packed like a lot of stuff into number three because I didn't want to have this whole laundry list of like bullet point number one, two,

So this one's a pretty juicy one to unpack.

So empowering individuals to create for themselves and value sewing.

For personal empowerment, sustainability, and to generate a sewing movement against consumerism and fast fashion.

So, I think a lot of what we see today stems from the fast fashion industry having such a negative impact on sewing in general.

Because you can go to Target and H& M and all these other conglomerates and buy a t shirt for 5.[00:07:00]

Why would you want to like learn how to sew that when it's going to take you so much longer? So I think,

Aga:

or even mend it

Katie:

yeah, or even mend it like

that's such a great point. Fashion now is just completely disposable, whereas before you would mend life out of your garment.

So it's really sad to see that. What a polluter. That fashion has become.

And then I think if more people actually learned how to sew their minds would be so much more expanded and they would understand so much more deeply the issues with fast fashion, because it's going to teach them how to value sewing.

So even if you're not sewing. like couture garments. Even if you just want to sew the t [00:08:00] shirt that you're wearing Like I'm looking at Aga's t shirt because I'm obviously not really it's a dress. I'm not wearing a t shirt. I'm wearing a dress If you try to make that

Aga:

You should. Tell us about your dress though.

Katie:

Oh, yeah, there is a video about this dress I've had this dress for probably my daughter was a newborn and she's almost eight

So yeah, I've had this dress for like almost eight years it had these like sleeves that I took off and it's It has holes in it that I've mended, and there's actually a video in our database that I use this specific dress and show how to mend.

Um, I love this dress. I'm going to wear it and mend it until it's completely threadbare.

Aga:

Wait, for people that are listening, there's a video on the database. What does that mean?

Katie:

oh, well you tell about the database. That's like your baby.

Aga:

Yeah, so [00:09:00] the database is my baby.

Um, it's just to be a really beefy catalog of tutorials that will be taught of teachers, different skill sets, different, um, intricacy levels. And, uh, they're just going to be short and speedy and to the point. Uh, cataloged categorized. It's gonna be great. It is great

Katie:

Yeah.

Aga:

We can't wait for you to see it

Katie:

And then can you explain to the listeners how our database is searching for something on, do you think I can say, the other brand name? Is that allowed? Yeah. so how is it different than YouTube?

Aga:

Everybody, everybody learns on the academy of YouTube nowadays. It's secret.

Katie:

Yeah.

Aga:

and the way that it works is you put in something that you want to learn and you have all these sew long videos. of, [00:10:00] sewists creating these projects you have no interest in creating and you're just watching for, you know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, sometimes fast forwarding, and then having to go back because you missed something.

Basically, you have to watch the entire video in order just to get a little snippet of what you're trying to learn.

um, that's going to be the opposite of what we're trying to do.

We're just trying to give you the knowledge.

So you can make whatever project you want, you don't have to go along sewing somebody else's design, somebody else's project.

You can just take the skills from our database, from our catalog tutorial, and incorporate them into your own project. And design your own thing.

Katie:

that, would have been so helpful for me.

Particularly like I did not go to fashion school. I was taught on the job by seamstresses. So the stuff I learned was like very, very specific.

Like this is how you do a rolled hem kind of thing. So my knowledge gaps were actually really huge. So I [00:11:00] would go home and then try sewing a dress for myself.

So I'm out here draping on the stand. With literally no instructions from anyone. I guess I can see her eyes are like in pain

Aga:

Yeah, we had this situation last week, we were talking about

how is the most efficient way to make a waistband

Katie:

Yes, that was actually really fun to talk through that um, but I don't want to get too sidetracked so

Aga:

Okay.

Katie:

Yeah, like I was you know Trying to drape on the stand if I had a database at the time that I could literally just go "How to drape a dress pattern" or "how to drape" Or there was might not have, even known the words to use for what I needed. I might have just needed to know like, okay, how, "how to make a pattern". Well, it would all pull up [00:12:00] in our database based on these keywords. And then. I still would have been able to make my project and not been like limited by a sew along because I didn't want to sew that dress over there.

I wanted to sew the dress that was in my head, the one that I had designed that I knew was going to flatter my body.

Um, yeah, or I remember the first dress I made, I did pretty, I did okay, like draping the skirt and draping the top of my bodice.

It was like a little umpire waist here, but I wanted like a really thick waistband right here.

So the first time that I made a waistband I literally made a rectangle.

Aga's laughing because she already knows what happened, but I didn't know.

And I remember I sewed this rectangle on and then I went to put it on my dress form and it, in the back, it was like, it like came up like this.

And I was so frustrated because this is probably one of the last steps [00:13:00] on this dress. I didn't know how to fix it.

I never finished it ever, which to this day kind of makes me sad. Cause that fabric was really cute.

Aga:

You know what you would have benefited from at the time? So I have two things to say actually. First of

all, the issue with

Katie:

We have to cut because somebody just knocked on my studio door.

Aga:

what we're trying to do with our database is make sure that, like, whoever, whatever, any teacher can submit A tutorial, but if somebody else makes a better tutorial, we'll keep in the better tutorial.

Like, so our sewists are

going to get the best of the best classes. We're not messing around.

Okay. So second thing I was going to say that what would have helped you with your waistband. know would have helped you with your waistband? A hangout

Katie:

Oh yeah. I was about to say darts, but yes. That too.

Yeah. So we do [00:14:00] bi monthly hangouts where It's literally it's for currently it's for our founding members But when we have our full launch in fall, it's going to be open to all members

We just opened it up early for a founding members perk

So that's a really exciting resource that our membership contains where you get on a zoom call with us and you can bring any sewing questions you want.

Whatever project you're working on, anything you're struggling through and we'll, we'll talk about it.

That would have been very helpful. I would have come with my horrible upward slanting waistband. I'm like, please give it CPR.

Aga:

And it's tough to fix it when you don't even know what's wrong

Katie:

Exactly. You don't know what to say. I feel like.

Aga:

So getting that feedback is crucial sometimes.

Katie:

I feel like the more you're around people who sew, the better it is for you, because [00:15:00] like you said, you don't know what you don't know. So just being in rooms with people and talking about sewing, you're going to pick up on so many things.

For me, a lot of it was the terminology.

Because a lot, all of the women who taught me how to sew, English was not their first language. There was a huge language barrier.

I remember the, the master seamstress who actually taught me dressmaking, most of what we learned, we were like drawing pictures.

Because that's how big the language barrier was, so I quite literally did not know the word in English for a huge portion of the things and the techniques that I was doing.

That doesn't mean that you're not a great seamstress. The work can be amazing. You just don't technically know what it's called in your language.

Aga:

What that word that I taught you to say? I remember.

Katie:

There's like a lot [00:16:00] of them. Remember Bobby net.

Aga:

Yeah, my favorite. I know it, but I still choose to say it wrong.

Katie:

Well, so Aga's giving me a hard time because I think it was petersham was the word I said wrong. No. There's so many of them. I used to call understitching a topstitch.

There's so many things that I called in the wrong thing, so I don't even know which one you're talking about. Anyways, moving on. Yeah, now I give Aga a hard time because I finally got her when she pronounced "Bob-a-net" as "Bob-ee-net". I'm gonna take that one to my grave.

In the afterlife, I'm gonna like, hey, I got, I got, I'm gonna be like, hey, hey girl, remember bobby net? [00:17:00] Okay, so circling back, circling back, because pillar number three had like so much juicy stuff in it.

So we touched on this Fast fashion and this fast fashion component.

One of the things that we didn't really touch too much on was the over consumer, over consumption, like consumerism and over consumption.

I, we, our company wholeheartedly believes that if people are taught the fundamentals of sewing and the fundamentals of sewing are something that's easily accessible to people, then there's going to be so much more appreciation. for sewing

Because right now I think it's very detached from a lot of first world countries.

We Um, we're in the U. S. if you couldn't tell, maybe not with Aga, but with me, I definitely come [00:18:00] from the U. S.,

I'm sorry girl, um, Aga has a beautiful Polish accent, I love it.

Um, we're very, the U. S. is very far removed from the sewing industry and sewing factories.

People quite literally have no idea how garments are made or where they come from, So how can you appreciate something and value something if you don't know what goes into it?

So if you actually learn how to make that t shirt, that's Aga's wearing you're going to think twice when you're at h& m And you see a t shirt for five dollars when you're like, well, wait a minute I just made a t shirt and when I bought the material at joann's I had to pay Five dollars alone for the necessary materials And then I spent Six hours making the thing.

So the math, the math won't be mathing.

And it's going to be very [00:19:00] obvious to people that overconsumption and fast fashion are incredibly harmful.

And then I think that's also empowering because I don't think that's a new concept for people.

It's actually an ever growing concept right now, this anti fast fashion, this anti consumerism movement, but it's very debilitating when you know that something is wrong, but you can't do anything like you don't have any tools in your toolbox to work against it.

So sewing solutions, I think, is going to be one of the most powerful things. That people can use if they, you know, want to say no to fast fashion and make life choices to combat that.

You can mend your clothing and get more [00:20:00] life out of it.

You can say no, like I don't need to go and buy my wardrobe at Target. Sorry, pick on your Target or You know, any of these Walmart, any of these conglomerates that condone, uh, fast fashion

you don't need to do that because I can go thrifting and I can, and now I have the skills to make that thrifted item fit me or to redesign that thrifted item to mend it.

Um, I think it's just. It's just such a powerful tool. Sewing is, is so powerful.

Aga:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Sewing Solutions Podcast. 

Here's where you can find out more and stay in touch. 

Follow our Facebook page and join our Facebook group, by searching Sewing Solutions 

Follow our Instagram at sewing.solutions.official 

You can send us comments and questions through Instagram voice memo DMs or email us at sewing.solutions.official@gmail.com

Thanks and Happy Sewing!