When Karen Swerling lived in California, she knew lots of exciting people.
“I was a costume designer in Hollywood for 33 years. I worked with David Bowie, Kelsey Grammar, Dinah Shore, Jimmy Stewart," she recalls.
It was a grand life shared with people who loved color, fabrics and the creative process. When she retired and moved to Richmond, she had hoped to make new friends, but it didn’t happen quickly.
“We were here for five years, and nobody would sew with me. I was so lonely. So I put on Nextdoor: Does anybody sew? And I got a thousand responses.”
She started a group called Richmond Really Sews – using a community room at the neighborhood supermarket and the basement of her 1910 Victorian. The sewing center walls are lined with colorful movie posters. On the tables there are patterns, materials, spools of thread, pins, needles and about 30 sewing machines.
The group has grown on Facebook too, with 2,300 followers. Some are veterans who learned to sew when they were kids. Katia Simmons has been stitching since the age of three. Dvora Courtland and Sue Lanigan took up needle and thread at five, and Betsy Parsons, who’s six feet tall, caught the sewing bug at age seven.
“In a picture with the fourth graders, I was standing on the floor like the teacher, and I was as tall as the person on the third row," Parsons says.
“My grandmother taught me how to sew buttons, and then I grew up in France, and I was not the right size, so we had to make clothes for me," Simmons adds.
“My mom taught me on an old treadle machine, to make things when I was bored — toys and dolls and stuff,” Courtland recalls.
"I can't ever remember not sewing," says Lanigan. "The very first sewing project I remember making was burlap. Went out by the barn and got pine needles and made little sachets for Christmas gifts."
Others – like Julie Allinson – tried their hand at sewing in school, got discouraged but have now come back.
“I failed sewing in junior high school, because I had to make an apron, and I sewed the pocket inside out, so I didn’t sew again for about forty years, and then I discovered this group, and they taught me how to sew.”
Courtland also stopped sewing for a time. The latest fashions from Asia were so cheap it didn’t make sense to make your own – but then she started thinking about the planet.
“As we’re learning more about the impact of fashion on the environment, and all of the waste that happens, people who are more eco-conscious are trying to make do with what they have – to purchase thrifted clothing and make it fit them .”
And she’s discovered the joys of mending clothes:
“The new philosophy on mending is to make it a feature of your garment so that it is visible and you’re proud of it.”
For Dina Weinstein, making her own clothes is an anti-fashion statement.
“Someone somewhere decided that skinny jeans are what we should all wear, and that looks horrible on me, but also I cannot find a coat that I like. They’re all super ugly. I’m not going to be beholden to some fashion company somewhere that decides I should wear whatever they think. I’m going to be me!”
And, she adds, it’s a swell way to meet people.
“As an adult it’s kind of hard to make friends, and this is a really fun way to do it. It’s like an ice breaker – what are you working on? It’s just a different way to engage with people.”
Tanesha Finney confesses her interest in sewing was sparked by a desire to make couture for her canine.
“I wanted to be one of those people who dress their dogs up, but the price of dog clothes is way too expensive, so I was like, ‘I can do it myself.’ My boyfriend, for my birthday, bought a sewing machine for me. It sat in the box for six months before I got the courage, and then I made my dog a hoodie, and it was magic ever since.”
She’s grateful to have colleagues who appreciate what she does.
“I can tell my family, ‘Oh I did a French seam.’ And they’re like, ‘Good for you.’ But if you know someone who knows the work that it takes to get that French seam, and they’re just as excited as you are.”
Bernice Baker loves learning new techniques from her stitching sisters.
“Even a technique that I knew – somebody's found a different way, like instead of using double threads they’re using floss.”
Marty Mitchell is amazed by how crafting together builds bonds.
“It's just old school — like quilting bees or whatever – communities coming together. Girl Scouts – I was sitting there one day teaching them how to knit, everybody got into the rhythm, and then the conversation started, and they were so comfortable.”
And founder Karen Swerling insists this activity is medically and spiritually beneficial.
“If we could get our world leaders to do this – we would have a different world.”
There's a group that specializes in costumers, and another — headed by Lanigan — that makes crafts.
“The project that we’re working with today is called a stitch pot. I use denim. If you look closely, you can see that’s the hem from a pair of jeans, and I just fringe the heck out of it.”
And many of the Richmond sewists have set their sights on Frocktails --- an annual celebration of sewing for a special occasion. Groups around the world gather to sip cocktails while watching fashion-shows of things they’ve made themselves.
Some even use these events as an excuse to travel around the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia. Richmond’s frocktail party is November 2nd.
