Sometimes collections come out of unexpected places. Last summer I had been working on a collection when an opportunity to go camping with some friends in Tofino popped up. We’re hotel-ers not campers, but we went for it anyways. Little did I know, taking this break would become a breakthrough for my collection too!
Often when I’ve finished a collection, I realize what it’s really about. Sure this collection is about surfboards, beaches, sand, waves… but to be honest the last two years have been tough on our family. The good news is we all learnt a lot about ourselves, we have all grown and are better for everything that happened. I won’t go into detail but let’s just say, when we were watching, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, I looked at my husband and said, how is it possible they know this is our life! Minus the hot dog fingers of course.
I realized, especially in the making of the wave print, how important it’s been to let go. Let go of the past, to what we perceived as our future. Let go of expectations. Let go of strangling the moment, instead of letting it arrive naturally.
Even though I never fully stood up on a surfboard, I did catch some waves that took off and it was shocking how fast it was. When that happened I was like, “OH… I get it!”… all I had to do was to let go.
I also realized how important it was to find the calm in the chaos. While trying to learn to surf, waves crash into you, or you fall off your board (there’s a reason they call it the drink!). It can be hard to find your footing, on the board and in the sand. Like our last two years, just as we got up again a new wave would come and crash into us. It was hard for us to catch our breath but eventually we found the calm in the chaos and it’s a beautiful view.
So my hope for this fun summer collection: not only does it fill you with endless inspiration for summer sewing projects, I hope it also helps you let go and find calm in the chaos in this thing called life (imaging those last few words being said like Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy intro!)… and speaking of music, as I do with each collection, I create a playlist early in my workflow. You can listened to my Goin’ Surfin’ playlist HERE.
