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Welcome back stitchers! We are sew excited to bring you a new tradition to the Stitch Please Podcast: Holiday Swatches. A fabric swatch is a small sample of fabric that allows you to visualize a project before cutting into yardage. Swatches are useful for sewing because they help us match fabrics, guide fabric prep, and prevent waste. Most importantly, if cultivated, swatches can become an archive of your creativity. This swatch series is here to celebrate the stitch please community by hearing from you all. For the month of December we will be sharing Holiday Sewing Traditions. From handbags to to scrap projects, new stitchers to the most skilled knitters, we have a great series of traditions this week. A special thank you to Jonelle Dawkins,  Byrd Wadhams, Jamara Alexander, Stacie Sturdivant and DeJanee Kletke for sharing their stories this week!

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Lisa Woolfork

Lisa Woolfork is an associate professor of English specializing in African American literature and culture. Her teaching and research explore Black women writers, Black identity, trauma theory, and American slavery. She is the founder of Black Women Stitch, the sewing group where Black lives matter. She is also the host/producer of Stitch Please, a weekly audio podcast that centers on Black women, girls, and femmes in sewing. In the summer of 2017, she actively resisted the white supremacist marches in her community, Charlottesville, Virginia. The city became a symbol of lethal resurging white supremacist violence. She remains active in a variety of university and community initiatives, including the Community Engaged Scholars program. She believes in the power of creative liberation.

Instagram: Lisa Woolfork

Twitter: Lisa Woolfork

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Jonelle Dawkins

Instagram: @scrapatl

TikTok: @scraplanta

Scraplanta

Byrd Wadhams

Instagram: @yogabyrdsews

Facebook: Yoga Byrd

Jamara Alexander

Instagram: sewsewjam

Stacie Sturdivant

Instagram: @sewsewstacie

TikTok: @sewsewstacie

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DeJanee Kletke

Instagram: deja_made _it

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Lisa Woolfork 0:00

Lisa Woolfork 1:09

Hello Stitchers. Welcome to Stitch Please. The official podcast of Black Women Stitch, the sewing group where Black lives matter. I'm your host, Lisa Woolfork. I'm a fourth generation sewing enthusiast with more than 20 years of sewing experience. I am looking forward to today's conversation. So sit back, relax, and get ready to get your stitch together.

Lisa Woolfork 1:34

Hey, friends, hey! This is Lisa Woolfork, host of the Stitch Please podcast. And I'm sew excited to be with you today. Yes, it is "s-e-w". Welcome to the Stitch Please holiday swatch. A fabric swatch is a small sample of fabric that allows you to visualize a project before cutting into yardage. Swatches are useful for sewing because they help us match fabrics, guide fabric prep, and prevent waste. And most importantly for me, if cultivated, swatches can become an archive of your creativity. You know, I love me a swatch. For the Stitch Please podcast, a swatch is an essential component of the whole. The Stitch Please swatch series celebrates the Stitch Please community by hearing from you. The holidays are fast upon us and I wanted to take this time to highlight you. What are some of your holiday sewing traditions? I have one. One of my favorite sewing holiday traditions is to make napkins. Festive napkins for this time of year. And one quick way to do that I enjoy, is with denim. Recently I made a very big set of napkins and I wanted them to be about 16 inches, almost 18 inches. They were really ginormous napkins. But you know, bigger the napkin the better the dinner. I just made that up. It's not totally true. But it's also not untrue. So I got some denim. I cut it into halves and that ended up yielding almost a dozen napkins out of maybe a yard and a quarter of fabric. These are all very rough estimations. The point is, it was denim. And that I did a contrasting color and made it really festive and so when I went to fold the napkins into these really fun shapes, it looked really cute. So that was one holiday tradition that I've recently done that I really enjoy is making these napkins. And out of denim, both red denim, blue, white, green, black. Just the regular blue denim, like, you can make a lot of really fun napkins out of denim and they last for a very long time. And they get softer as you use them. So that is one holiday traditions, napkin making, that I have long enjoyed. And using the serger makes it so easy to do. Though, you can also do it with some miter corners and your sewing machine by double folding it and making sure to turn those corners before you get to them. And that's a quick little secret about that. But now that I've shared a little bit of one of my holiday traditions with you and how I like to bring creativity into my celebrations, let's hear from you. Thank you all for being here and celebrating with us.

Byrd Wadhams 4:29

Happy holidays, guys! My name is Byrd and I am a 50 plus sewist. Yes, 50 plus. I love saying that and I am a sewist that believes that your age should not define your style. I like to wear very trendy, kind of current fashions. I also like to wear classic things, but I love, the more color, the better for me. I love a pop of color. So, I am here to share with you guys a little bit about my sewing traditions. But, let me tell you, I am brand new. Not brand new, but brand new when you think about sewing, considering that people have been sewing for 20, 30, 40, 50 years, when Mama and grandma taught them when they were young. Well, that wasn't a thing for me. My mom barely could thread a needle. It really wasn't her thing. I picked up sewing, like so many other people around the world, during COVID. When you run out of things to stream on Netflix, because let's face it, Hollywood, they weren't making anything new. So after a while, there was nothing to watch. I ordered a $99 sewing machine and my journey started there. So I say to you, as you're thinking about this holiday season, if you're looking to pick up a new talent, a new hobby, a new craft, you don't have to spend a lot of money. Sewing can be expensive, but it doesn't have to be expensive. $99, $150 sewing machine will do pretty much anything that you want. So my tradition started just three years ago. I started making, I actually brought a couple of them, these funky looking pajamas. These are actually better looking than the ones that I started with. I never used patterns. So let me just say that I didn't start with patterns because they were so expensive! So I used ready to wear clothing. I would literally lay the clothing out on top of new fabric and trace it out. And so I've made pajamas for my adult children, my son, my daughter, my husband as well. They're all crazy and funky looking. Even more crazier than this and they love them and they wear them to this day. Were they perfect? Absolutely not! Did I set out to create a drop crotch in the some of the pajamas? No, but let me tell you how cool they are, right? It really kind of worked out. So I'm happy about that. So that is a tradition. Every year, I'm going to make them something to wear because it gets really pretty cold here in Maryland. So I'm gonna make them something that they can lounge around during the winter months. And you guys know plastic is out, right? Plastic is absolutely out. And so when you go to the grocery store, you need to make sure that you have a grocery bag. And so I like to make, for family and friends, these little grocery bags. And this was one that I repurposed from another garment that I made that I really wasn't feeling. So I didn't want to throw it in the dump. So I repurposed it. And I carry this when I'm running out to pick up small things. But you can make them any size that you want. So these are some of the traditions. But I have to tell you, one of the new traditions is that, with scrap fabric, I like to make these little reversible wine bags out of quilted fabric. So when you sit it down on the counter, you're not going to break the bottle. It is an amazing present for folks. And it is something that they can continue to use. I actually encourage them to gift it. like to gift it on to the next person. So it continues to live on beyond that initial gift. But I really do like this. You can customize this any way that you want. I have a cricket. You can actually put that person's name on it, make it very personalized. In this particular case, I did not want to do that because I wanted them to be able to gift it on so it's a gift that continues to give and to continue to live on. So those are really my holiday traditions. And I wish you guys the very best during this holiday season. Whatever way that you may celebrate it is amazing, wonderful and perfect. So thank you guys so much and happy holidays!

Jamara Alexander 8:31

My name is Jamara Alexander. My handle on Instagram is sewsewjam. And that's "s-e-w-s-e-w-j-a-m". People always want to write "so-so" and I'm "sewsewjam". Anyways, so when asked about my holiday tradition, I don't really have one. This is the first year that I've ever even considered making something for somebody. So, I have a cousin who lives in California. She, I almost said she recently had a baby but her baby is two, at this point. And she always asks about me, she prays for me at night. So my goal is to make her two dresses for Christmas. And it's hard to say that I don't sew for anyone because I do make things for my husband, occasionally. My oldest son, I've made something for him. But at this point, that's the extent of my sewing for other people. So if all goes well, and these dresses come out pretty cute, or giftable, if I may, then my tradition will be to make something for at least one person, every holiday. I recently bought an embroidery machine. And, a very expensive embroidery machine. And my goal was to make and sell items and do all these things. It's a little lofty, I think, because I have yet to actually make something to give someone. I play with it more than anything. So I mean, I would love to like throw that into the pot of, you know, creating traditions and doing things like that. I have some really cool things that I've made just never gifted. So, I guess the answer to that question of what my tradition is, is to get enough confidence to actually make things for other people and be excited about it. That's a whole thing in itself, as well.

Hello, Stitchers. My name is Jonelle Dawkins and I'm the executive director at Scraplanta Creative Reuse. We are a nonprofit that inspires the community to make art instead of waste. We are located in Atlanta, Georgia and you can follow us on social media at scrapATL on Instagram and Scraplanta Creative Reuse on Facebook. My holiday traditions include a lot of selfish sewing. Usually near the end of the year, things tend to slow down for me in life and everything. And I like to take that time to catch up on all the sewing projects that I've been missing out on throughout the year. I like to use that time to get through my sewing stash and just cut those patterns that I haven't had a chance to see. As I get older and I've sewn all the things I wanted for myself, I also try and relinquish some of my scraps to make nice things for my family. Each year, I am challenging myself to be more low waste with my holidays. So instead of using traditional wrapping paper, sometimes I wrap my presents in fabric. And I just ask people to give me the fabric back. So I'm like, I'm giving you a gift, but you're also giving me my gift back by unwrapping my fabric and giving it back to me. Recently, I've also tried to make a couple of things like tank tops, which can be easy stash busters if you want to use the extra fabric that you have, especially with knits. And I've been challenging myself to use bias tape that I've made myself with extra fabric to give clothes a different pop of color. I've loved it when different companies, like Queenora Renee, has a holiday collection. And so has Emerald Curtain Fabric. And I've supported them and used their panels to make fun holiday gifts for my friends. And if you're looking for fun, holiday stash busters. I've made eyemask for my friends, because it's just very minimal elastic and cotton and even just satin to line it. I've also made travel bags and things like that. So every holiday I just look for ways to find more sustainable gifts that I can give, and things are also functional. Because I think sometimes we get caught up and we feel like we have to give people things. But, I'd say, do not feel overwhelmed by the holiday season. Know that there will always be another holiday. Cause if it's not Christmas, you can give during Valentine's Day, people's birthdays, just you know, look for any reason to give. It feels like the year ended so fast for me. But if I don't give everybody a gift at Christmas, always know that there are more times to give throughout the year. And people do appreciate gifts that you make for them. But it's fun to see people like just ooh and ahh at things that you've given them because you finally decided like, I guess I'll give them a little piece of my stash by making them an eyemask and things like that. Now that I have my Cricut, I can use the Cricut to cut out iron on letters from T shirt scraps. And then I just iron that on to T shirts and sweatshirts. So I can make very customized gifts for my family and friends. As someone who grew up with a weird name, I have a lot of friends who like to have their names on different gifts and things like that, just for the things that they never got as a child. So if you're looking for fun items that you can use with the extra pieces in your stash, like cut it up with your Cricut and then iron it on. I know the the Stitch Please community has a lot of quilters who liked to use appliques. So don't be afraid to piece things up and put together. I know patchwork is in this year. And it's another way to just sustainably stash bust and make wonderful things for the holidays. And then at the end of all this, you can also use this as the opportunity to gather up supplies that you haven't used all year and donate them to your local creative reuse center. Cough cough, Scraplanta. Or the other great ones throughout the country. Also, I've noticed a lot of interest in the fiber arts amongst the youth. And a lot of them just don't know where to start. So instead of looking at gifting a physical object, you can also give your time and sit down with one of your younger relatives and craft with them and maybe give them a sewing class. Maybe you don't have to put them on your fancy sewing machine yet. But if you have a younger person in your life, be sure to just give them the opportunity to craft something fun. And that can be a gift in itself. Like. I'm a strong believer of the phrase "if you teach a man to fish he'll eat for life." And that's the way with giving youth the power of sewing and knitting and crochet and all of those wonderful things so they can make their own gifts and not use things from your stash.

Hey, friends, hey. I wanted to pause briefly and take a moment to thank those who make the Stitch Please podcast possible. To our Patreon subscribers and Act Blue donors, thank you. Your support keeps the lights on and your faith keeps me going. To Chris Rivera and the team at Congregate Charlottesville, thank you for your fiscal sponsorship and the lessons in financial stewardship. You are very much appreciated. To the guests we've had this year, thank you. Shout out to Bisa Butler for celebrating our 200th episode with us. And special thanks to all the guests who have made every episode of the Stitch Please podcast a very special episode. And to the Stitch Please team, sincere gratitude to content creator Janelle Velasco, project manager Christina Gifford, producers Crystal Hill and Mike Bryant, and live show producer Latrice Sampson Richards. I couldn't do it without you. And last but not least, thank you. Yes, you. I am totally talking about you. Did you hear me say you? Uh huh. Thank you for listening. Thank you for telling your friends and family about the show. Thank you for following and reposting us on socials. Thank you for your warm, direct messages and comments. Thank you for being the best group of stitchers I could ever have hoped for. Thank you.

Hello, so I am Stacie Sturdivant, but I am on all the socials as sewsewstacie. "S-e-w-s-e-w-s-t-a-c-i-e". I always have to stress that because a lot of people don't spell their first name like mine. So, "s-e-w-s-e-w-s-t-a-c-i-e". I live in Birmingham, Alabama. I learned how to sew as a child by my grandmother. Moved, did a whole lot of stuff over the years, went to school forever. And I decided to pick it back up, remembered nothing. And so I started Mimi G's, Sew It! Academy. And within a couple of months, I picked up my first independent like pattern. Like went to the store, caught one of those Simplicity sales and went for it. And it's been on ever since. My holiday tradition, so I guess mine is a little bit different because my birthday is actually December 12. So what I started doing is every year for my birthday, I do something sewing related. So I am planning to do a gift set. Okay, not necessarily like a gift, let's say a gift bundle. I don't want to say a gift set, but like a gift bundle. So my store, that I can't believe I launched, is sewsewstacie.com. And I basically make a lot of hair bonnets. I had to move away for a little while. I lived in Hawaii. I'm a veterinarian by trade. And when I first got my first position as a veterinarian, I worked for the government. And so I went to live in Hawaii. And you know they had things on the island. I lived on Oahu. But I was just kinda like "I wish I had this. I wish I had that." and then, you know I would move different places. So after a while, I was like "you know what, I want to hair bonnet but I want this hair bonnet. I want this but I want this this way." So, I just kind of hand drafted a bonnet, made it, and I posted it. And a lot of people were asking about it and that's how I started selling hair bonnets. So, you know, I'll make different things for different people but my hard core product that I'm going to sell at all times is going to be a hair bonnet. I travel a lot for my job so right now, the the website is active but I don't have any products truly on there for sale besides some fabric. Because I can hoard fabric from time to time. And I feel like people will just, you know, get better use of it than me so I've started to sell fabric on there. So basically, my hair bonnets. But I'm going to do a hair bonnets cuffs for when you're washing your face because I also do makeup. And so, you know, you wash your face with makeup, its gonna get muddy, coming down your arms. It is what it is. So, gonna have cuffs for sale, as well as satin scrunchies because, as you can see, I am natural and that's how I go to bed at night. I put my hair in two puffs like Pippi Longstocking and keep it moving. So I'll be making scrunchies. I'll have the cuffs. And I have the hair bonnets. And that is in production as we speak, all being made by my hand. So that's my tradition. Every year, something dealing with my brand that I didn't even realize I was creating over time. So it first started with, on my birthday, I launched, I think, sewsewstacie, my Instagram page. Just small. Then the next year, I think I started a blog. After that, it was the website. It's just always something that I'm doing with the store. So this year for my birthday/holiday tradition, it will be going live with my holiday sets. I guess thats it.

My name is DeJanee Kletke. My handles on Instagram and YouTube and TikTok are deja_made _it. I'm lying, cause YouTube is just DejaMadeIt, all together. I made it simple for you there. But TikTok and Instagram are both the same. And so, holiday traditions. So I am a little bit newer to sewing as far as like, really making lots of garments and that sort of thing. So this year will be a new tradition. But, I will share an older tradition that will be moving into the new tradition. So our older tradition is, when we were kids, we always painted ornaments. So my mom would get me and my brother and my dad and we'd go as a family and we'd go to Michael's. We pick out all the little porcelain or clay, whatever they were, little white ones. We pick them all out, whatever we wanted. Then we get the little, you know, 20 Pack, 30 pack of the little paints, and we paint them all. And she has them all the way back from like 1992 or 93, all the way to when we were like in high school. And you can see progressively, as we got older, because they turned from like, all of different shades of like browns and blacks, to like actually having different colors on them. So they got better as we got older. But more recently, now that I've gotten into sewing, and I'm sewing different things, garments, and bags and stuff like that, this year, my mom has started to see some of the bags and the purses that I've done. And one way that my mom and my grandma and me have always bonded is over shoes and purses. And so both of them have requested bags this year. And I think that'll be a tradition going forward, is to make them bags. One thing about it is, you know, as women we all have different shapes and sizes. So doing clothes would be a little bit harder. But bags is easy, right? You know what size bag they want, whether it's a crossbody, a clutch, or a sling. And you can make it perfect for them. And I think what is also nice about bags, is you can really customize them to the person, right? So you can if, you know, maybe they're a loud or a bolder person, you can put a really nice beautiful, you know, print or, you know, a nice crocodile red or blue or something that really speaks to that person with a fun interior. And if they're more of a simple, chic person, you can really customize that bag to really speak to that person. So I think that'll be a fun tradition going forward that I can do for my mom and grandma. And kind of, you know, really bring them in on my sewing journey and it'll be a heartfelt gift for them, as well. Made with love.

Thank y'all so much for taking the time to be with us today. I cannot wait to see what you make this holiday season. Don't forget to tag us @blackwomenstitch and use our hashtag #stitchpleaseholidayswatch and #stitchpleaseswatch. You've been listening to Stitch Please, the official podcast of Black Women Stitch, the sewing group where Black lives matter. We appreciate you joining us this week and every week for stories that center Black women, girls, and femmes in sewing. We invite you to join the Black Women Stitch Patreon community, with giving levels beginning at $5 a month. Your contributions help us bring the Stitch Please podcast to you every week. Thank you for listening, thank you for your support, and come back next week and we'll help you get your stitch together.