Yesterday, you saw the terrific wedding dress made by Lisa Polderman, Chicago area sewist and blogger. Today, let’s learn more about her and what motivates her as a maker.

How did you get into sewing?
I started sewing in the summer of 2010. I was planning to leave my job at the end of the summer in order to stay at home with my kids for a year, and I wanted something to learn for myself during that time. I took five private lessons with a local sewing teacher and made a simple pair of pants for my daughter and half of a dress for myself.

Birthday Dress by Lisa Polderman

I picked sewing mostly because it was practical. I have two daughters, and I assumed that they would want clothes as they grew older (probably nicer clothes than we could afford) and I like to dress well myself. Since we would be losing a significant amount of income when I left my job, it seemed like a good idea to pick up a hobby that could save money. And I also already had a machine that I had inherited from my husband’s grandmother.

But I did hesitate before taking the lessons. I like to be good at things – I’ve got some drive and competitiveness in that regard. And I’ve got a bit of a perfectionist streak. I didn’t want to do a hobby that I could only hope to be mediocre at.

Around this time my book club read My Life in France by Julia Child, and I discovered that she didn’t learn to cook until she was 39 years old (as in could barely boil an egg before that point). I was 40 at the time and I figured if she could learn to cook at 39 and make a career out of it, I could learn to sew and at the very least become competent at it.

And then I fell in love. I love the act of sewing. I love the concentration in requires (the kind of concentration that allows you to lose yourself for a while), I love how much there is to learn. I love taking something flat and giving it shape. I love the problem-solving nature of it – you run into roadblocks and have to figure out how to get around them with the tools you have or the tools you can learn. I love fabric. I love the beauty of fabric and how different fabrics behave different ways, and that their nature can be manipulated. I love being able to make clothes that fit me perfectly and are exactly what I want.

I love being able to do that for others, especially those who have experienced frustration when it comes to buying well-fitting clothes that they also like. It’s such a relief for many people to have their clothes fit their body, rather than trying to make their body fit the clothes they want.

Since those initial lessons I have largely learned on my own. I read books and blogs about sewing, I take online classes, I study garments, and I ask for help from the people I meet in the sewing world who know more than I do. I love that I can keep developing new skills and that 10 years from now I’ll still have much to learn.

Custom pattern by Lisa Polderman

I think part of what makes me different in this field is how I got here – I didn’t learn tailoring as a trade and I’m not a 20-year-old fashion student. I got here out of passion and drive. I can also easily identify with my clients – I’m near their age, I dress well but I dress for my lifestyle, I know what it’s like to work in a professional setting because I did that for 18 years before I changed direction. And I’m really good at listening. And in the listening, figuring out what my clients actually want and need vs. what they say they want and need.

Tell us more about your business.
I’ve made custom work the center of my business because it’s what I most enjoy doing. I know some artisans hate custom work, and I get why they do. But I like working with clients, getting to know them well enough to design with their tastes, bodies, and lifestyles in mind. I like that puzzle.

And I like that everything I make is for a particular person, instead of for a bunch of people I haven’t met and won’t ever know.

Jacket in Studio by Lisa Polderman

What are your goals?
My current goals are to continue to develop my couture skills, learn to sew trousers for other people, and inspire a love of garment sewing in others. I love how couture techniques give accuracy and durability to garment construction – if you want something to fit perfectly and last forever, go couture!

And when it comes to trousers, so many people have a hard, hard time finding pants that fit, and I’m excited that I’ll be able to help with that in the future! I started teaching sewing about a year ago (in my former life, I taught and trained teachers) and I love being able to help people experience the joy that comes from sewing one’s own clothes.

You dress really well, why do you think that matters?
I didn’t always think it did. When I was younger (teens) I prided myself on not caring about fashion, not knowing how to dress. This pride really came out insecurity – it was easier to reject a sense of style than to figure mine out.
As I got older, I wanted to dress well but I didn’t really know how to do it. I wore mostly black or dark colors, because that seemed safest – I didn’t want to mess with trying to figure out what went with what. And I copied a woman at work who had a similar body type – she looked good, so I thought if I dressed like her, I would look good, too. And that mostly worked, except it wasn’t really me.

I don’t think I really figured out how to dress until my late 30’s. My company moved West and I stayed on as a remote worker. This meant that I no longer had to dress for an office. I also didn’t want to wear lounge clothes all day because that just zapped my energy and made me feel less confident. So I finally had to figure it out.
I think dressing well matters because it helps form your opinion of yourself and the opinion that others have of you. It is also fun, a form of play. My young daughters love to dress up and try out different versions of themselves, and so do I.

And I just feel more confident and happy when my clothes reflect who I am and who I strive to be. In my experience, people want to learn to dress well but they don’t know where to start in terms of style, color, and comfort. One of the nice things about dressing well is that you don’t need a lot of clothes to do it – you just need the right clothes.

Thanks for stopping by to talk Lisa! I hope everyone has enjoyed getting to know you.

Want more Lisa? Follow her blog! Here’s a post that shows some of her couture techniques and how that results in clothing that fits just right and hangs just right. Once you see it, you see it, and then you’re ruined forever, you’ll need custom clothes too!

And finally, because she’s such a great blogger, her blog is the winner of Blog of the Week! Here’s her badge, which her blog can wear with pride! You’ll find Lisa’s blog to have humor, excellent tutorials and tips, and a great story of the journey of this handcrafted life.

This is a tool that I used to manufacture and sell, and you can make it yourself, if you know how to make photopolymer plates.

Here’s what it looks like when you use it write in the clay:

Here’s what I wrote about it back in 2007, when I first started making them:

Finding the perfect tool for writing words in metal clay is not easy. Rubber stamps are too large, and metal clay sticks to rubber. I love using typewriter strikers, but they are getting harder and harder to come by, and not everyone loves them as much as I do.

To solve all these problems, I have come up with the Photopolymer Alphabet Tool! It’s a do it yourself project, but that keeps your cost low. The clear part of photopolymer plates cut very easily with scissors. Just cut out each letter and glue them with regular school glue to the backs of pencil erasers! (See photo for a sample.)

The letters are “outies” on the photopolymer plates, which will give you an impression in your metal clay. This makes it easy to use liver of sulphur to darken your letters, making them easy to read.

Where can you learn to make photopolymer plates? Here are some links to some previous posts on the subject.

Getting Started with Photopolymer Plates:
http://www.creativetexturetools.com/news/2007/06/10/getting-started-with-photopolymer-plates

Some tips for improving your plates:
http://www.creativetexturetools.com/news/2009/07/21/another-great-tip-to-improve-your-photopolymer-plates

http://www.creativetexturetools.com/news/2008/04/02/improve-your-photopolymer-plates-with-this-tip

How about you? What’s your favorite way to write on metal clay? Do you make your own photopolymer plates? What’s your favorite tip about making them? Please post a comment, everyone wants to learn from you too! Thanks!

This post by Wendy Edsall-Kerwin typifies what artists should write about on their blogs — she writes eloquently on why she makes what she makes.

http://hammermarks.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/turbulent-flow

For this and other excellent posts where she shows her works in progress and finished works, her blog Hammermarks wins our Blog of the Week! She may display this badge, below, proudly on her blog!

P.S. Wondering how I found Wendy? I think I found her via the Ring-a-Week challenge. Then we kept up with each other on twitter, where she’s @wtek.

This week’s Winner is Harriete Estel Berman for her very informative blog, Ask Harriete. You may not know that Harriete is one of the minds behind the excellent Professional Guidelines at the SNAG website (Society of North American Goldsmiths).

When I discovered Ask Harriete, I was immediately drawn in and read a year’s worth of posts in one sitting.

No one else out there is doing what Harriete is doing, sharing her years of experience in the contemporary crafts world and taking reader’s questions.

And the information! Wow! Reading Ask Harriete is like having an experienced mentor by your side, keeping you from making dumb mistakes, and guiding you along in your crafts business.

A definite add to your Google Reader, or bookmark for your regular rounds of blog reading.

Lorena Angulo is a Mexican metal clay artist living in Texas whose work is influenced by her Mexican heritage. Above is one of her calaveras, or skulls in the style of El Dia de los Muertos. Below, here’s a view of her flickr set of a number of calaveras, including shots of them before they were fired, which is so interesting to see, you really get a sense of how they were made.

Having never seen calaveras done in BronzClay before, or any metal clay for that matter, I was drawn into Lorena’s flickr page, where I felt like I got to know her by touring her studio:

and her work bench:

She wrote on her blog about Dia de Muertos,

“Mexico is a country with a lot of colors, with wonderful traditions and a culture that it is transmitted from generation to generation. I have been out of my country for more than 10 years and my two kids were born in the USA. I have always talked to them about my country and my traditions and we celebrate a lot of them here.

The Day of the dead, Dia de Muertos, is a celebration that brings me to my childhood in Chiapas, Mexico. I remember I was never scare of it because we learned to respect dead and celebrate the continuation of life every day. We celebrate and remember the family members that pass away by honoring them with happiness about the wonderful life they had.

This wonderful tradition is very old in my country, when the Spanish came to my country they tried to convert the native indigenous to a new religion and new ways of living but they could not make them stop celebrating Dia de Muertos.

Originally Dia de Muertos was celebrated for a whole month in the end of July and beginning of August, when the Catholic priests saw they could not stop them from celebrating this day they decided to moved it to only two days to coincide with their own “All saints and all souls day” in November 1st and 2nd.

All this incredible memories have inspired me to make “Calaveras” in my work. I really enjoy designing them and then making them came alive in silver, bronze or copper.
I love to show my kids my Calaveras and they like them a lot.
They are my biggest fans and this creates an opportunity to talk to them about the day of the dead. Keeping my tradition alive from generation to generation!”

I asked Lorena how she got started in jewelry making. She said:

When I moved to live to San Antonio in 2002 I decided to open my own business promoting hand crafted art from Mexico and various countries.

Having that close of a connection with so much beautiful work made me start looking for a school where I could learn how to make my own designs in metal. I started taking classes at the South West School of Art and Craft in San Antonio in the metals department.

Claire Holliday, a wonderful jeweler and teacher, was in charge of the department and she was my first teacher in metals and she introduced me to metal clay almost a year later and since that day I have not stop making my work mostly with metal clays. I have been making jewelry with metal clay since 2006.

For her fabulous use of flickr as a promotional tool, Lorena’s flickr page is our site of the week winner and can display the award badge on her sites and blog page!

And congrats to her for having work selected for this year’s PMC Annual.

Read Lorena’s blog here: http://blog.lorenaangulo.com

Visit her etsy shop here: PuebloFolkArt

Here’s her website: http://www.lorenaangulo.com where you can see what a great job she’s done integrating social media into her site.

All photographs and work depicted are (c) 2009 Lorena Angulo All Rights Reserved

Reprinted here with permission.

The Carrotbox website and blog is pretty cool. I especially like the blog, see it here: http://thecarrotbox.com/news, where Alice highlights super cool rings, and only rings, from all over the web.

It’s an amazing “best of,” totally worth your time.

Alice’s shop features all non-metal rings that she’s chosen — glass, plastic, wood, acrylic, as long as it’s not metal! She started the shop since she can’t wear metal rings herself. The site is nicely designed, clean, easy to navigate, and her personality shines through. And what a neat niche!

Catch the Wave III by Bev Gallerani.

I saw this cool piece at the Bronze Clay Flickr pool.

Bev’s website, mango-tango-designs.com, is easy to navigate, well organized, and most importantly, easy to shop!

I like the way she has a theme — most designs are on a ocean theme, which she reinforces with the blue background, and the piece of jewelry in the upper right corner that says, “by the sea.” How cool, using the jewelry itself to communicate both that this is a jewelry site and the theme!

And I love that she’s got the choices “New” and “All” as ways to view her jewelry. Very few artisan jewelry sites have multiple navigation methods.

Everything is set up to make it easy to find what I want and then to buy it!

She also makes good use of Etsy, see her Etsy site here: mangotango.etsy.com.

There are so very many artisan jewelry sites out there, it’s hard to stand out. I think having a niche like this is a great way to go.

Melanie at Earthenwood Beads has created a consistently interesting blog, showing her creative process.

I always enjoy reading her blog, as well as the blog she contributes to, Art Bead Scene, but her recent series on Steam Punk was particularly interesting.

She chronicles her research into the Steam Punk style, and the beads she creates for this market. The gear beads above, are an example of that.

It’s always cool to see someone’s work process, what the beads look like before they are glazed, and after. But I’ve never seen a blog series or article showing how to research a style (or market) and then create pieces for that market.

Very cool.

Read Steam Week here: earthenwood-beads.blogspot.com

Check out Sarah Hood’s easy to navigate site and beautiful jewelry here.

While she has a wide range of work available, it’s organized into clear “lines” so it’s not a problem. I love her acorns with little silver caps in the organic line!

Blacksmith Kirsten Skiles does a great job with her blog of talking about and showing her work. I love her forged home dec. items and have just the spot in mind in my house…

She also makes maximum use of other web tools, such as Flickr, which she uses to display her entire portfolio.

From her blog you can get to her Flickr page, her Etsy shop, and her list of upcoming workshops. Rather than put all of this on a website, she uses the blog as a hub for everything.

It’s a great strategy and seems to be working well. I can find everything I need on her blog, it’s easy to navigate, no complaints. Check it out here.

(For more on this topic, see my Squidoo Lens, Promote Yourself Online without a Website.)

Could this model work for you? Is blogging for you? Post a comment, tell me what you think! Thanks.

Images and work are (c) 2008 Kirsten Stiles All Rights Reserved