Hi, I'm Kate (@timetosew) and I’ve had a 13 year love affair with textiles, sewing, and sustainable fashion. Once upon a time I accidentally met at Dutchman and moved to the Netherlands. By now I can call myself Dutch but I grew up mostly in Australia and ended up here via a long stint in the UK.
When and why did you start sewing?
My mum is a textile artist – she sews, weaves, knits, crochets, felts ... and when I moved countries she wasn’t there to fix my clothes anymore. I figured if I could work out how to hem my trousers I could also just sew them from scratch. Well, I can do it now but safe to say the first pairs were not a success!
KATE & BLOGGING
Can you tell us some more about your blog?
As part of a course in sustainable fashion some years ago, the final project was to figure out what to do with our knowledge. For me that was sharing it with the sewing community via my blog, because at the time we didn’t talk much about fabric production, recycling, 2nd hand etc. These days there’s more awareness and things in sustainability move slowly, so I shifted to writing more about things I've sewn, if there were interesting things to mention.
When and why did you start sharing your creations on Instagram?
Blogs were going out of style and IG was the next thing! I really found a community though and I met all my closest sewing friends online, many of them became in real life friends too.
KATE & FIBRE MOOD
Why are you a fan of Fibre Mood?
Our Creative Director Teresa is absolutely amazing, she’s got the best sense of style that she translates into patterns – modern, on trend, things to suit every occasion. By now our pattern library is huge and every issue there’s something for everybody.
What exactly does your work for Fibre Mood involve? What do you do for Fibre Mood?
A bit of everything over the last 4 years! Translation work, proofreading / editing, filming marketing material, making voiceovers for tutorials, hosting sewalongs, keeping an eye on the pulse of the English-speaking community, providing marketing ideas, previously also logistics and customer service and website... and so on.
KATE & SEWING
What are your favourite Fibre Mood patterns?
I’m all about the dresses when it comes to Fibre Mood patterns. Mira from edition 4, Marion from edition 13. I made both multiple times and I reach for them regularly. This summer I also plan to make another Kate dress because I love my purple lemon one so much (it would be rude not to right?)
Do you have any top tips for other Sewistas?
If you are just starting and want to accelerate your learning, going to an in person sewing class if you can will do wonders. Apart from that it’s just practise, practise, practise. Like learning your times table as a kid, picking up a new language, figuring out how to cook when you stopped living with your parents... just keep on going because practise makes (almost) perfect!
