With Meg McElwee, of Sew Liberated

I first found Meg through the magical web that is the internet; a feature on Ohdeedoh of the Montessori-inspired room she and her husband, Patrick, had created for their son Finn lead me back to her blog, Sew Liberated.  I had just given birth to my own babe and felt a strong pull to the care and thought that seemed to so strongly guide Meg in her preparations for mama-hood.  Unlike many new mamas, though, Meg’s interest in early childhood began far earlier than those two candy-pink stripes on the pregnancy test.  Digging through the archives of her original blog, Montessori by Hand, Meg’s dedication to child-lead education and development is obvious, as documented in the photos of the handmade apron-donned children in the one-room school she lead for three years in rural Mexico and the endless resources she searched ‘round for and shared in posts.  Although Montessori by Hand was originally created with the intent of working as a sort of forum for Montessorians to share their own creative approach to education with the greater internet community, it is clear in reading through the archives that the blog’s following quickly grew beyond those who were leading classrooms and extended rather to a broader range of readers who came for inspiration -- and, over time, tutorials and patterns -- of the crafty kind. 

Meg, something I noticed in reading through the archives of Montessori by Hand as it evolved into Sew Liberated is the rather literal incarnation of the old adage, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”  So many of your early projects seem to have grown out of needs in your classroom, home, and wardrobe.  However, the skill level in manipulating the materials to match what you were concocting up in your imagination is quite extraordinary!  I’m curious, with your educational background being in early childhood development and a Montessori certification, do you have any sort of formal training in the fiber arts?  (It seems a big jump – moving from understanding how to follow a pattern someone else has written and turn what you see on paper into something you might be able to wear – to actually writing that pattern yourself!  I did some costume design work in college and remember being totally overwhelmed by all the MATH involved in a pattern-drafting course I took ☺).

I do, if you count the year I participated in a 4-H sewing club as a ten year-old! As a child I lived for art classes of various kinds, dabbling in watercolor, drawing, and sculpture. My mom taught me all the sewing basics, then sent me forth into the world with the belief that, no matter what I decided to do with my life, I would always be an artist. It wasn't until I started graduate school that I purchased my own second-hand sewing machine and began to develop the technical skills of pattern making and garment construction. I poured over books and am self-taught in that way, but my most influential teacher has been the fabric itself – experimenting, cutting, seaming, and ripping seams until I finally figure out how to make a piece of flat fabric into that vision in my head.

 

There is a moment in the process of learning a craft -- truly feeling the difference between wool and acrylic yarns when you are knitting, finally being able to capture the image your mind’s eye sees with the proper camera lens, writing an image into a short story that tells everything a character is feeling in a pinnacle moment in just a few words – where you discover what a difference using the right tool can make.  What, for you, have been the tools that have helped you to grow in your craft as a designer and seamstress? 

The first in this list must be my Bernina sewing machine. The second-hand machine that I purchased in grad school ended up staying in Mexico – it's still there, humming away, making children's aprons, I suppose. But my oh my, there was something that changed in my skill level as a seamstress when I was finally able to invest in a good machine (I have an Aurora 430).

The second in my list is my serger, a Bernina MDC1300, which  does all the normal serger stuff plus a cover stitch (that stretchy, two-line stitch used to hem your t-shirts.) My serger and I have a rocky relationship, and I have dreams of getting a Babylock Imagine one of these days (it threads itself), but until then, my serger is a constant, though sometimes frustrating, sewing companion.

Next, I have to gush about quality fabric. In Mexico, I could only find poly-blends, which are kind of icky (both to sew and to wear). Once we returned to the US, my stash of natural-fiber fabric began to grow. I love sewing with organic fabrics from www.nearseanaturals.com , as well as with specialty fabrics from www.gorgeousfabrics.com. The best thing about these two fabric stores is that you can order swatches from them. I've learned the hard way that you need to see and feel a fabric in person before purchasing online! Colors, drape, and texture just don't come through on the screen.

Finally, the simple addition of a walking foot (a special foot for sewing machines that pulls the top fabric along with the same tension as the bottom fabric) made my projects look much more professional. No more stretched, bunched seams.

Not too long after you first began selling your designs as professionally-packaged patterns, you wrote a post on Montessori by Hand about an episode of This American Life (possibly the perfect late-night crafting companion?) you had recently listened to. 

In Act Three, “Martha, My Dear,” the author visits his dream job in the crafts department of Martha Stewart Living.  His query: If passion became his job, would it still be fun? 

You seemed to be facing a similar question as you stepped into a new pursuit with your pattern business, writing “This is a really important issue for me at the moment, as ‘my little sewing addiction’ becomes a ‘job.’  It has become all the more essential for me to protect and nurture the creative process that brought me to where I am…”  And now, several pattern releases, a published book, and one baby later, what do you think?  Is it still fun?

I definitely need to listen to that episode again! A lot has happened since I first wrote those words. I wrote them because I felt a twinge of worry, a hunch that my creative freedom was being bridled somehow. There is a difference between creating for leisure and creating for your livelihood, especially when you're a new mama pinched for time. Is it still fun? Yes. And no. The pace of it is what gets to me – my creativity was bridled and it's been mounted by a little jockey called Time and boy oh boy … I'm in the race! I will be totally honest and admit that book deadlines officially suck. I would be more than happy to be galloping at full speed on the wild plains, but when you have your eye on a finish line – that deadline – it's not as fun. Honestly, I'm just trying to get done with the manuscript for my second book, and then I'm through with deadlines! Deadlines are NOT for mamas with babies!

I do still get very excited about bringing to life these ideas in my head. My favorite part of the creative process is the geometry that's involved and the trial and error of making up the muslin. If it weren't for Finn, I would probably work happily into the wee small hours of the morning, forgetting to shower or eat, until I finish a project. Those were the days. As you know, this isn't how work gets done anymore – my “flow” is constantly interrupted by my hungry/tired/giggling/crawling/cat-hair-pulling babe! What a pleasure, though, to have this balance in my life now that wasn't there before. I still forget to shower, but for different reasons!

You wrote Sew Liberated: 20 Stylish Projects for the Modern Sewist, through the nine months that you were carrying Finn.  Now, you have a second book in the works with that babe in your arms instead of neatly tucked in your belly.  While I think we get glimpses of what mama-hood will be like through out pregnancy (many nightwakings to use the bathroom and adjust sleeping positions from one side to the other, for example), we simply cannot know what it will be like.  You wrote a truly beautiful parenting manifesto of sorts when you were about 25 weeks pregnant with Finn.  I’m wondering, a year after writing out your philosophy ideals, what from this list still rings most true to you as a parent with experience under your belt?  Is there anything you would add to the list now? 

Ah, that post! I received all sorts of feedback from it – most was supportive, couched in a cautious tone. Other mamas warned me not to have my heart set on any one thing; they offered stories of difficult births, challenges with breastfeeding, doubts about the parents' ability to keep the number of toys to a manageable level, etc. Everything was well-meaning, but it made me feel sort of naïve. Was parenting really this fraught with difficulties? Who was I to know?

Now I know. Parenting is hard and exhausting – it would be disingenuous to claim otherwise. I really understand now why parents make certain choices that I might have (wrongly) judged as misinformed back in my days as a teacher, pre-mamahood. Sometimes you just need to make that choice to get through the day/week/month. Too bad we don't live in a culture that allows more breaks from work, more time to just be and to just be with loved ones. Instead we often find ourselves stressed and pressed for time, forcing us to make difficult trade-offs.

We, too, make trade-offs. We can't spend every moment responding to Finn's every need – we're just too busy right now. We read a lot. Finn probably sees us working on the computer a bit too much. We get frustrated and exhausted. That said, Patrick and I haven't yet had to revise our parenting manifesto. Now, Finn is nine months old – that could change! But so far, we've had wonderful experiences with natural birth, breastfeeding on demand, co-sleeping, and elimination communication. Finn still spends a good amount of time in a sling, but we were also gifted a mama-facing stroller. It's still easier for me to sling him while running errands, but I love the stroller for daily walks. (At 25 weeks pregnant I thought I could do without a stroller, but hey, it's nice to have, especially as he gets heavier!)

We've communicated our desire to grandparents and family to keep Finn's toys to a minimum and to make those few toys beautiful and heirloom-quality. We got through baby showers and Christmas, and Finn still doesn't have a plastic toy. (Well, I take that back – he has a rubber ducky in the tub, and any tupperware container is the perfect plaything if you're trying to fix dinner with a crawling baby afoot!) The key to this has been our toy rotation system. We only keep out five or six toys at a time – only what will fit on his shelves. The rest is in a box in the closet, and we rotate “new” toys onto the shelves only when something that has been out gets put back in the box. This keeps the house less cluttered, and I think it keeps Finn from being visually overwhelmed.

What still rings very true to me are our basic parenting tenets that I wrote about:

1. Respect and observe our child and do our best to respond to his true needs.

2. Thoughtfully question any given philosophy (including Montessori) and refer back to number 1 when implementing anything.

These two sentences have served us well so far. Since Finn's birth, I've really been questioning my Montessori background. There are so many good ideas to be found within the philosophy, but so much of it needs to be read while taking into account the historical context in which Maria Montessori wrote, as well as her personal background. I've come to the opinion that Montessori education devalues free, imaginative play (while getting many other things right!) So, I've been reading and researching everything Waldorf, absorbing all that feels right for our family, and carefully questioning the rest. I've also been doing a lot of reading about unschooling. Perhaps I'm just a seeker. Will I ever be content to just follow an educational philosophy as-is? Probably not, but I'm more comfortable with that now than I was just a year ago.

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While I haven't yet had the chance to sew up any of the fantastic projects in her book, I've dog-eared several pages (including the little chef apron -- there are crazy thoughts going in my head just now of making this for Pan for Valentines Day?  I don't know, can it be done in two days with a month-old nursling?).  There's a whole range of projects, big and small, in this book and they are all so lovely.  I am far from an advanced sewist, but the writing and instructive imaging of Sew Liberated leaves me feeling inspired to try.

Thanks so much for your words here, Meg!

+Chelsea

*All photographs taken by Meg McElwee.