About 6 years ago, I — Amy — found a quilt at a thrift store, stacked in a pile of towels headed to the animal shelter. What a treasure I brought home! But it sat with my sheets, waiting for me to slow down enough to attend to it.
I finally found that time when I was recovering from Covid. The quilt needed new edges. I never quilted before, so I looked at some videos to learn what I needed: binding. I would be applying fresh binding.
I spent a lot of time on Etsy, exploring options. The pinks and reds drew me in, and I bought a roll of orangey batik binding. When I got it, I knew it wasn’t right for this project. So I started hunting again.
Searching for fabric stores near me, I found an upcycler called UpStitch. These incredible places are popping up, making shops where fabric stashes can find new homes when people – often women – die. For the quilt, I ended up buying a cotton with a pink daisy design from a chain store, but I've bought a lot of lovely fabric from UpStitch, and filled a lot of drawers with projects to be.
I can’t resist collecting cloth or old clothes that call to me. Even online, I get hungry when I look at pretty fabric. Not in my belly, but in whatever part of me needs beauty. It makes me hold my breath, to see appealing prints and colors. I’m partial to reds and oranges, but I love stripes and paisleys of any shade. Any. Last spring, I found an abandoned stash on the curb in my neighborhood. It was wet from the rain but I brought it home and washed it, gave what I didn’t want to UpStitch. I’m using some of the sidewalk scraps in a project I keep not finishing. Someone else cut out squares, and had an idea in mind, but they didn’t finish it either.
We are always recycling – ideas, air, recipes. These were someone else’s, and now they’re ours. As a teenager and young adult, I wanted to think new things, to be a person who was as new as I felt. Now, I’d rather feel every connection, stitching me to someone else.
From Ellie:
I sewed for my dolls as a child and I remember I was particularly proud when my mom let me hem my dad’s jeans. Those not so fancy supermarket jeans needed a little help. My dad had a couple of pairs at time and when they would get too old, my mom would cut them to make shorts for him and save the legs to make skirts for me. I still have one of those outfits that got transformed. One of his 3 piece suits became a skirt-suit and vest for me. I no longer have the jacket, but occasionally use the vest.
Before having kids, my husband got an offer to teach in France and we rented a house in the town of Velizy-Villacoublay. I was not too far from Versaille and a train ride to Paris. My days were very open. I had quit my newspaper job in the US and found myself a new immigrant again. My French was very rusty and I knew I needed people to survive. Moving into a tourist town, logistics competed with alluring Parisian things. Getting a driver’s license and work permit almost outshined sunsets at the Louvre. But I kept both kinds of appointments. On Fridays I gave myself assignments and would take the train into Paris to photograph and find stories.
During the week I would try to figure out life in a new city. Someone told me about a woman named Elise Patte who had an atelier and that she taught sewing lessons. The idea felt almost too incredible to be true. This became a very special vignette in my life.
Elise would always have a pot of “tisane” (herbal tea) going and I looked forward to being in a room with her guests and students, practicing my French and working with my hands.
I never stopped hand sewing, even though I am a lazy sewer. My skills are not very refined because I think I just want to see it all together. But Elise had a way to help us be open to play. She had anything one needed, and she had the skills to help us see our project come true.
For my first project she insisted I do a roll-up sewing bag, a place to keep needles and buttons and so on. Even though this was functional, she wanted me to tell a story with my design. She helped me cut and redo a collar from a vintage pink dress I got at a Brocante; she also helped me cut an old sweater and made it into a pancho. She showed us how to make flowers from fabric scraps and add magical buttons to just about anything.
Everything felt so possible in that space. It was a place to reimagine without judgement. You want to cut a vintage dress? Put it on, let's see what we can do. It took several weeks as the goal was for her to show me, not to do for me. I kept coming back.
We had tea and meals between atelier nights. Often I was thinking about what could be next in my career. Newspapers were starting to close back in the US, and I didn’t have a working visa in France. I had the “wife visa.”
One day, after finding out that “I was too old” to apply for a master’s program in Paris, that I had thought it would be a nice progression for my career, I came home and asked myself:
Ellie, if you can’t take pictures, what is the other thing that gives you joy?
I like to cook with people. I started combining the assignments I gave myself with opportunities to cook with people, and photograph and share stories. That was how my #storycooking was born.
Here a little video from Elise’s Atelier:
I continued sewing, made toys for my kids, and little gifts for friends. I mend here and there and I am trying to learn grainy squares. I am holding on to that thread and keeping on making tea.