Seamwork Radio: Sewing and Creativity

We're on the second week of Space Camp where we'll all refresh our sewing spaces to create a comfortable, organized, and inspiring place to create when you're at home—no matter how big or how small your space might be.

Last year, we held a really popular summer sewing camp in conjunction with the Seamwork Radio Podcast episodes. We're re-airing the "Space Camp" portion this year to give you a chance to organize and set up your dream sewing space.

Sarai and Haley will be your camp leaders, and in the next 4 episodes, they'll share ideas and exercises to help you upgrade your space.

Let's talk about five apps that you may not have used before that can really level up your sewing. We're going to cover apps you can use to get creative while you plan your sewing, apps that help you stay organized, and even my favorite app for helping you sketch your projects.

Let's talk about my five tips to help you choose the right fabric for your sewing project. We're going to cover why choosing the right fabric can be so hard for so many people, what to specifically look for when buying fabric for a project, and how to dramatically improve your fabric shopping skills in a short amount of time.

Today, we're talking about five books on creativity that have totally transformed the way I think, and even in some cases, really have changed my whole life. So we're going to cover one book that helped me create rituals that I've been practicing for years, one that helped me understand how to get into a creative mode more easily, and one that's a really practical workbook for building more creative time into your life, so you don't want to miss these.

You set a sewing queue with the best of intentions, but sometimes you can still find yourself stuck. Or, sometimes, you turn into a magpie and constantly get distracted by sewing projects.

But there are some tricks to staying excited about your sewing queue.

In this week's podcast episode, you'll learn how to choose your next project and get tips you can rely on to keep your queue interesting.

Dressing comfortably in the sun-soaked days of summer is a challenge, but choosing the right fabric can make all the difference.

In this episode, Sarai and Haley share their 5 favorite fabrics to sew and wear in the summer. They'll tell you why each fabric is great for summer and give you a list of garments that work well with each fiber.

Editing is one of the most underappreciated aspects of any creative journey. This includes picking out a new sewing project. With so many choices, the process can feel overwhelming. So, how can you simplify it? Ask a designer!

In this episode, Sarai and Haley discuss why editing is vital to any good design process and share an easy three-step process they like to use when creating their sewing plans for the season.

Is your social media algorithm showing you the same thing over and over again?

We use social media and Pinterest for mindless entertainment, but it can be easy to go down a scroll-hole. If that's the only input your brain is receiving for inspiration, you can get stuck.

In this week's episode, Haley and Sarai chat about how social media algorithms are creating cultural uniformity and how you can find ways to discover your own unique taste when there is this culture of sameness.

Clothing is a really strong repository of memory. Creating your own wedding dress is the perfect opportunity to flex your sewing skills and create a true heirloom piece.

In this episode, Sarai and Haley discuss the benefits and drawbacks of sewing your own wedding attire. They also share their expert tips for reducing stress and ensuring your wedding outfit turns out just as you envisioned it.

Are you new to zero-waste sewing? Are you thinking about trying a zero-waste pattern for the first time Or are you wondering if Seamwork will ever release a zero-waste pattern?

This week's podcast answers all those questions.

Sarai and Haley discuss the benefits and limitations of zero-waste sewing and give eight simple steps for exploring this niche.

In this episode we discuss how sewing teaches you to want less. So we're going to cover our own relationships with consumption, how that's changed throughout our sewing journeys, and then eight ways that you can lean on sewing to help you consume less.

Show Notes:

• Making Time: Sarai's personal substack all about creativity and managing her energy around it.
• How to Use the Rule of Three Outfits: A past Seamwork Radio episode dedicated to helping you plan and develop a curated wardrobe.
• Design Your Wardrobe: Our popular course helps you plan the sewing projects you'll love to wear.
• Style Workshop: This hands-on workshop helps you define your core style. It's FREE for Seamwork members and just $10 if you aren't a member.
• Podcast listeners get half off an unlimited Seamwork membership when you use this link, plus you get to keep that price as long as you're a member!
• Tell us your idea for the next icebreakers for makers!

Outfit formulas help you get dressed easily and confidently each morning. In this episode, Sarai and Haley share five outfit formulas you can wear this spring. They cover what an outfit formula is, what makes a good outfit formula, and then five ideas you could incorporate into your own spring wardrobe.

When you're getting dressed in the morning, your goal is to wear clothes, not for your clothes to wear you. And if you love vintage fashion, sometimes it can be challenging not to feel like you're walking off a movie set or cosplaying as a character from another era.

But we love vintage fashion.

So, how can you incorporate vintage into a modern wardrobe? Here are 7 tips.

In this episode, Sarai and Haley talk about how to sew a wardrobe you'll still love in ten years. They cover what makes a garment long lasting—both stylewise and physically—how to choose styles that you'll love to wear for years, and practical tips for making garments that stand the test of time.

Feel like you're in a style rut? In this episode, Sarai and Haley show you how to update your wardrobe when your lifestyle, job, body, or sense of style changes.

They cover the signs you might be in a transition, give you some tools for examining that transition, and some actions you can take to evolve your style alongside your life.

Use this fashion industry trick to define your core style. Sarai and Haley talk about Style Signatures, including what they are, how they can help you better define your personal style, how to come up with your own style signatures, and then how to deploy them in your wardrobe.

In today's podcast episode, Sarai and Haley share five lessons they've learned from Design Your Wardrobe, and all of these lessons point to one thing: learning how to think like a designer and edit your wardrobe is an invaluable tool for your sewing.

When a new season arises, you can feel the urge to reinvent yourself and refresh everything in your closet. But there's a simpler way—just refresh the colors you wear!

In this episode, Sarai and Haley provide a 5-step process for defining your colors and putting together a spring color palette.

Here's something you might not know about yourself: You're an editor.

When you sew your own clothes, you're always making editorial decisions, from pairing fabric to a pattern to styling a final outfit.

In this episode, Sarai and Haley cover why editing is so important in design, how to set constraints to make editing easier, and ideas for making tough choices a little bit easier.

If you've ever logged into Pinterest and stared wide-eyed at the never ending scroll of inspiration, you've likely run into one of two problems. Too much inspiration or none at all.

In this episode, get 5 tips for finding exactly what you want on Pinterest. With these tips, you can build mood boards that truly help you with your sewing plans.

Trends are one of the most powerful forces that drive fashion. But they're a little tricky.

On one hand, trends can be really fun to play with. They bring something new into your wardrobe. But on the other hand, you don't want a closet full of really trendy things that don't really feel like you.

Sarai and Haley cover eight trends for spring 2024 and some ways you can incorporate them into your sewing.

Having a real sense of your creative purpose can act as a North Star that guides you in your hobbies—or any creative part of your life.

But your purpose can shift as you grow and learn different things about yourself. Uncovering what matters to you is something you have to do repeatedly.

Here are 4 exercises to help you discover how you're changing and how your purpose might be changing, too.

Did you get into sewing to help reduce textile waste? A lot of people do. And it's great to go to a fabric store and get that new, beautiful fabric. But sometimes it's nice to find an alternative and really flex your creativity in a new way and help to keep that waste down.

In this episode, get give tips for using thrift shop finds to create your next sewing project.

Has your creativity ever felt a little low? Today, Sarai and Haley share ten things to do when you're just not feeling very creative.

They cover things you can do to come up with new ideas that get you excited again, things you can do to prepare for when creativity does strike, and things you can do to get your hands moving.

In this week's episode, Sarai and Haley share 5 ideas to help you sew for cold weather. They cover how to make your winter sewing extra warm and cozy, and share practical tips and fabric ideas for a toasty, wearable winter wardrobe.

Listen to a recording of the patternmaker panel with 6 amazingly talented patternmakers here in Portland, moderated by Sarai. They chat about all the secrets your patternmaker wants you to know, the differences between ready-to-wear and sewing, and their favorite parts about making patterns.

In October, we hosted our very first in-person event at Seamwork HQ. Nearly 100 Seamworkers gathered for Stitchfest, and we all spent the day together later. There was a panel of local patternmakers, a sample sale, and a live recording of the Seamwork Radio podcast.

In the live recording, Sarai and our patternmaker, Robin, answer the 7 most common sewing questions we get asked here at Seamwork.

In October, we hosted our very first in-person event at Seamwork HQ. Nearly 100 Seamworkers gathered for Stitchfest, and we all spent the day together later. There was a panel of local patternmakers, a sample sale, and a live recording of the Seamwork Radio podcast.

In the live recording, Sarai and our patternmaker, Robin, answer the 7 most common sewing questions we get asked here at Seamwork.

This week, Sarai and Haley share their favorite things to make, and tips for making your handmade gifts feel extra special.

If you're going to sew gifts over the holidays, listen to their comprehensive list of more than 50 project ideas.

We all make mistakes when we sew. It's normal.

Almost every project you sew might have a few sewing bloopers, but the silly little mistakes you often make are pretty easily avoidable.

In this week's episode, Sarai and Haley talk about some of the most common sewing bloopers and how to avoid them.

Sewing and buying fabric are two different hobbies, and they're both equally enjoyable.

But it's important to marry the two hobbies so that your fabric buying habits and your sewing habits match up and you actually use all that fabric you're buying.

Today, Sarai and Haley are talking about your fabric stash. They'll share five ideas to help you manage your stash.

Do you ever wish your home sewing projects looked as polished as the clothes you buy in the store? Today, Sarai and Haley are discussing ways to make your projects more polished. They cover five different tips to help you get a professional-looking finish.

Your sewing machine is one of the most important sewing tools you own, and it's likely one of the biggest investments you've made in your sewing.

But a lot of times when you buy one, you're just handed it, and you're expected to know what to do with it.

Just like a car, it does need regular care and maintenance. In today's episode, Sarai and Haley share five tips to care for your sewing machine.

Sarai and Haley are hosting a quick-tip series on the podcast. For the next few weeks, they're sharing quick episodes full of tips to answer your most burning sewing questions.

And today they're talking about scrap busting, with five ideas to help you bust your scraps.

Today on the podcast, Sarai and Haley are talking about how to overcome your fears around sewing—just in time for Halloween.

They cover the two types of fears you might have about sewing, how to decide which one you're facing, and a three-step process for overcoming any sewing fear.

In this episode of the podcast, Sarai and Haley talk about a five-step process for tackling all your unfinished sewing projects.

They cover why UFOs feel like such a burden, what common barriers stop you from finishing a project, and the steps you can follow to have fewer unfinished projects taking up space both mentally and physically.

In this week's podcast episode, Sarai and Haley share ten hobbies besides sewing that you can incorporate into your creative practice.

They'll cover how these sewing related hobbies can be a source of inspiration for your sewing, what their ten favorites hobbies are, and how each of them can enhance your future sewing projects in different ways.

Sarai and Haley share five tips for keeping your closet organized with minimum fuss. They cover how a seasonal closet can be a key to a more organized wardrobe, some easy storage tips, and how to edit your wardrobe year-round, even if you're feeling really lazy about it.

This week, Sarai and Haley share the ten things they wish that they'd known as beginners—the most valuable lessons from their decades of sewing. Hopefully these lessons will be helpful to you, too, no matter where you are in your sewing journey.

In this episode, Sarai and Haley cover some reasons you might experience burnout when it comes to sewing, how to head it off, and tips for maintaining a healthy relationship with your sewing practice.

Last week, Sarai and Haley chatted about how you can incorporate trends into your wardrobe while still feeling like yourself and making clothes you can wear for a long time. Today, they're talking about specific trends for fall and winter 2023, and how you can bring them into your sewing plans.

In this episode, Sarai and Haley chat about trends. They show you how you can incorporate trends into your wardrobe while still feeling like yourself and making clothesyou can wear for a long time.

They use designers and the design world as a lens so you can create a more focused wardrobe that really feels like you.

It's the final week of Design Your Wardrobe! Sarai and Haley are doing DYW right now, too, and they're sharing their experiences (and tons of tips) with each module in the course.

This week, they're sharing the checklists they made that all of their plans must meet, some details about the outfits they put together, and some of the patterns they plan to make.

In this special series, Sarai and Haley are going to show you exactly how they use Design Your Wardrobe to plan their sewing. They'll work through each step in the course, sharing their plans and tips along the way.

In this episode, they share the color palettes they put together this season along with what they found in their fabric stash and closet.

In this special series, Sarai and Haley are going to show you exactly how they use Design Your Wardrobe to plan their sewing. They'll work through each step in the course, sharing their plans and tips along the way.

In this episode, they share their tips for setting a goal and making a mood board.

In this special series, Sarai and Haley are going to show you exactly how they use Design Your Wardrobe to plan their sewing. They'll work through each step in the course, sharing their plans and tips along the way.

In this first episode, they share their tips and processes for gathering inspiration and avoiding inspiration overwhelm.

It's the last week of Summer Sewing Camp and the final week of the Style Workshop! In these final exercises, you'll gather all the words you've come up with throughout the Style Workshop and distill them into 3-5 words to describe your core style.

Is there a subtle difference between the clothes you LOVE to wear and the ones you actually wear? In today's episode, Sarai and Haley share even more exercises from the new Style Workshop, to help you define your core style.

In part two of your exclusive look at the new Style Workshop, you'll learn about the first tool you need to define your core style: Investigate. In this episode, Sarai and Haley discuss why investigating your identity in four key areas: history, values, culture, and body, is such an important part of this workshop.