For our children’s Junior Ranger backpacks, I worked hard to plan the design to enable the maximum number of patches to be added over the years. Every Junior Ranger receives a pin when they are sworn in, and I’ve…
I make a lot of things for my children. I don’t often make things for them that I want to get out and play with when they’re not home. This time? Yes, I totally do. These are one of…
Over the years as I have grown Whipstitch and altered focus or direction, I have developed an ad hoc system for keeping organized through both short-range and long-range projects. This isn’t a “system” so much as the means I…
I taught tenth grade for a long time. Part of the curriculum for that level in the state of Georgia is to cover the Holocaust, a tough topic no matter where you live. Here in the South, discussion of…
When I started knitting, I realized I needed to think about storing my textiles differently. For one good reason: MOTHS. Moths are the enemy of long-term textile storage, which we learned the hard way at our house from one…
Hand-knitted? Hand knit? Whichever. I thought at one point I would never, ever, ever knit socks. The stitches are just soooooo tiny, you guys. But my friend Alexia assured me that once I got going they were really fast,…
I first met Dana through a benefit auction online. I offered up one of the dresses I used to design, and she was the second bidder–outbid by a dollar. And we bonded over how, in a benefit/charity situation, maybe…
TODAY is the final day to register for the 2017 Sewing Buddy Project! After nearly a decade and over 1000 sewing friends matched, the Project is here to find you your perfect sewing pen pal! A one-time fee gets…
At the beginning of 2010, I sent out a quick survey to see what it is that most of us see as the reason we aren’t able to successfully get our sewing goals met each year. Is it time? …
Years ago, before I started Whipstitch, I was a schoolteacher. Schoolteachers are not, as a cultural group, widely known for their fashion sense. For the most part, I suspect I dressed like a sad librarian. I know this because…
This past year has been one of the happiest, most rewarding years I have ever spent sewing, and that is down to a single factor: the people I spent it with. I made the decision almost exactly one year…
I wore my Driftless Cardigan–photograph below from Instagram, and yet another garment I have yet to blog about because I’m too busy wearing it–this morning, and a friend asked if I had made it. And what I told her…
It is finished! My amazing yellow yellow merino-and-silk sweater is all done. Well, finished depending on whom you ask. Seems like nearly all the knitting sites I’ve seen say it isn’t really finished until I block it. Which appears…
I did a personality profile recently. Not like an online quiz kind of thing, but like a detailed personality assessment with a 39-page analysis and a person-to-person de-brief with the consultant. It was so, so fun. I mean that…
I have never made a bag I liked nearly as much as this bag. It is possible I have never OWNED a bag I like nearly as much as this bag–and I am deeply emotionally attached to my yellow…
