Featured Seller for July: Flutterby Butterfly * Sweetgrass for Sandie

* Tell us a bit about yourself.

Well, Iʼm silly. I laugh a lot. Nervously. It's awkward. *heh* Ummmmm.....Iʼm a Canadian prairie mama, lost in the wide open skies.

These ponderiffic days, my activities consist of : sewing, scribbling, sleeping, designing, gardening, eating, being mom, yoga, immersing myself in breath, writing, snapping pictures, reading, walking, and rearranging the furniture.

>* What inspires your ideas?

Everything. Iʼm not picky. Insatiable, in fact. I absorb everything I read, see, experience, gobble it, chew it thoroughly, ingest, churn, and poop it out. My sketchbooks keep my bookshelves full of this process. If itʼs not in a garment medium, then itʼs in another one ; painting, sculpting, moving about, cooking, dancing badly, inventing, musical plunkery, planting, growing, on and on.

Technically, I refuse to think I understand where ideas come from.

Sometimes I can understand the point of contact with my stratosphere of thought for a millisecond, but mostly I believe that “where ideas come from” is a bigger question than most zen masters/buddhist monks/mediums/meditational wizards/whathaveyounot have been puzzling to answer for centuries.

I just take it all in, clear my mind, and there you have it.

Ideas pop in and out of my thoughts at random continuously, like electrons, so Iʼve always a pen & paper at hand to try and capture them in some physical form when they present themselves. Then, the sketches get rifled through intermittently ; some go in the sketchbook, some go immediately to the construction board, and some I go “huh? wtf?" to and they get filed in the recycling bin.

Thereʼs the gems, that make me stop everything Iʼm doing and create them full-swing on the fly. Youʼve got to sway when the spirit says sway, ya know? Thereʼs the ones that take a lot of deep thought and time to compile, construct, tweek, and look at upside-down in a mirror... which are also rewarding because I get to sink a LOT of energy into them and always end up learning tons from. Each creation has itʼs own identity, itʼs own personality, itʼs own purpose. I believe that in order for me to experience the creation fully in itʼs purest form, I need to remain open to itʼs personality, itʼs destiny, and itʼs unique reason for existence.

Yeah, I know, *yawn*, huh? but for, me, thatʼs just the way she goes, and Iʼm a lover not a fighter.


My personal style does have direct influences. These come from a limited but forever metamorphasizing stock of artists and sources : Alligator Pie's illustrator Frank Newfeld, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, Quantum Theory, English fashion designer Alexander McQueen, 1800's architect Antonio Gaudi, Italian fashion designer Emilio Pucci, Patanjali, icon Bob Marley, artist Andy Goldsworthy, musician ThomYorke, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, sculptress Nikki de Saint Phalle, visual artist David Lynch, musical collective Animal Collective, poster artist Bob
Masse.

Check out my flutterbybutterfly.net links as well as my favorites on Etsy to see some handcrafted influences for my garments.

Which brings me to my manifesto, which shapes the essential ideas of the garment creations you will see in my online shoppes.

Eco-savvy thoughts, processes, materials, and consciousness. Ultimately, iʼve been recycling and creating eco-items since the get-go... but by growing this idea and passion year by year, breath by breath, idea by idea, Iʼve developed more and more into a sustainable business. That is my greatest inspiration... to be creating with a miniscule or absent eco-footprint.

What does this mean? Creating quality ready-to-wear garments that last through years, through hand-me-downs, and through dancing in thunderstorms before finally biodegrading. You may read more about all the little eco-steps that make a difference in my Bioʼs online.


Then thereʼs the Business-nonsense, which I can credit wholly to my Dad. He gave me a fantastic foundation by being the most creative Professor of Commerce. Ever. When I would see him borrow my toys for a lecture demonstration, or go to work dressed up like Spock, I learned that you can have fun thinking outside the box AND knowing all about economics, accounting, marketing, and entrepreneurship too. Business decisions are different than my creative process, but itʼs been most beneficial to maintain an education about how these “less fun” things run the
capitalist machine, so that Iʼm not pinned down by rules and regulations I canʼt control. Like the recent economic crisis and plummet of the Canadian Dollar! So, yeah, my Dad is awesome. Go Dad.

Wait... haha...sorry... what was I supposed to be talking about?

> * How long have you been sewing/ how did you learn?


My partner, Mikel, taught me how to use a sewing machine. I sewed everything by hand with a needle & thread the old-fashioned way up until I began sewing "professionally". I love the hand-felt look of sewing by hand, but until I can perfect a time machine constructed out of old toasters, and grow another ten hands, Iʼll settle for the machines. They do a pretty good job.

Iʼve been sewing/creating since I can remember. My dolls had tube dresses, tube tops, tube skirts, tube hats, tube socks, and tube purses (as well as short brush-cuts and marker all over their faces). This mad skill peaked in Girl-Guides when I started altering my own clothes, and combining them in unusual ensembles.

Iʼve always been known for an eclectic style and quirky-alterations. Friends and strangers would come up to me saying “where did you get that?”. When traveling and at music festivals, I started to get “can i buy what youʼre wearing”?. So In Uni, while acquiring a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and hanginʼ with a gang of crazily creative cats shootinʼ for the moon, I sewed for my first market, and never looked back.

> * What inspired you to begin selling your work?

Who : Sandra from Gypsy Circus.

Once I saw her work from the festival circuit of 1999, I realized it was time to take my hippie-fashion-passion to the next level. I began selling clothing and bits & bobs that next summer. Sheʼs been a constant inspiration through this journey, and such a lovely lady in person!





* Where do you do your crafting?

Sewing :: in the City, Iʼve converted our brightly renovated basement into a small studio. I simply didnʼt appreciate the overhead and extra ecological resources needed to support a separate studio, so Iʼve set up at home. In summers I sneak outside and sew the day away in the summery goodness under a nice big umbrella.>



I also travel between the City and the Little Cabin in the Woods, to stay connected. My family & machines get packed up along with what other random fabrics, and I have the blessed opportunity to work in the lovely silence that is the Boreal forest.


Everything else :: Geurilla Crafting. No holds barred. Everything, everywhere is game. W-w-w-hatchout...

> * Do you have a day job?
Iʼve been a student of yoga for fifteen, and a teacher of Iyengar yoga for five years. Teaching and studying yoga helps keep my connection with people and balances the solitude of my sewing life. It's awesome, I get to slap people. *heh*

> * What one word best describes you?

ubiquitous? Higgs-boson?

perhaps those describe best how i feel from the vast and peculiar inside of my head. from the outsides? eclectic.

not as in catholic... but as in all over the place.

> * What is your biggest challenge?
Unassumingly keeping my head from imploding.
*blink*
*blink*

> * Do you have a favorite quote that inspires you
while you're working?
embarrassing, but true : Nikeʼs “just do it”. Iʼve got this photo from the Louvre with me boisterously cheerleading beside the statue of Nike (Victory) tacked on my sewing board so as to remind me every day to pitter-patter just get at ʻer. Total. Geek.

> *What do you see for your business in the next year?
hmmmm... Iʼve taken the fashion route, and learned that I donʼt want to be a fashion star, because thatʼs too shallow and greedy for me. Selling out just doesnʼt feel great. Iʼve tried to go bigger, with contracting work out-of-house, and felt like a fraud not having my touch from tip to tail on everything I sold. So, for now, Iʼll say Iʼm content with where I am.

Itʼs taken years of hard work and mistakes to know where I want to be, and now Iʼm concentrating on staying here, hanging out, digging my heels in, and getting better at it. I feel that I will deepen my understanding and technique of working with fabric, be a better ETSY seller by learning more about itʼs groove, and continue to learn how to tweak all the small things without spontaneously combusting into confetti from imbalance.

I also hope to continue exploring the work and lives of other artists in my field, like those at Gypsy Road, to become more aware of our innate creative expression. Creativity is a gift, and the most fascinating element, for me, to learn life through.