I’m Keira, a sewing fanatic from the Caribbean. I started sewing as a child because I needed my barbie dolls to look fabulous and they sure did when I was finished hacking my dad’s socks.
I made myself a few outfits throughout my teenage years but didn’t take my sewing too seriously. My focus was on school and church since that is what was accepted in my household. I later had dreams of becoming a fashion designer but self doubt and fear took over and I opted for the traditional ‘go to school and get a degree in business’ path. That being said, I went to university in Trinidad and graduated with a B.Sc Management Studies degree.
Being extremely introverted, my worst nightmare came through when the job I scored was as a customer service professional in a telecommunications company. I mean of all the jobs that exists, I just had to find myself in the one position that I feared the most. Nevertheless, I persevered and conquered and I learnt so much about myself. Now I know for sure what I do not want to do in life.
I got married and moved to Barbados August 1, 2015. I sent out hundreds of applications and got one response. That one response was for a customer service job and though I needed the money, I just could not bring myself to accept it so I turned it down.
A year passed and I was still a housewife, not what I would have ever expected in my wildest dreams. Then a miracle happened, so unforeseen; I was asked to design and create an outfit made from recycled materials for a high school pageant. My husband is an environmentalist so I was pretty much about to join his world. This is the point at which hubby bought me a sewing machine and dress form. When I tell you guys that I did not sleep for days; I put my heart and soul into that dress.
Since then, I made other recycled outfits and took part in a fashion show. I started referring to myself as a trashion designer and our apartment turned into a junk yard so I could collect materials. One thing I had noticed from doing trashion is that I was having trouble drafting my own patterns. I hopped onto google and searched for patterns to use for my trashion designs. McCalls popped up and I ordered a few. No more trashion opportunities came up. The patterns just sat in a box.
I suffered with severe depression from feeling like a waste of a human with no job and no goals. I had put on so much weight, my clothes didn’t fit. March 2018, I pulled out a shorts pattern and wiped the dust off my sewing machine. I had no clue what I was doing; of course I cut the wrong size. But I fell absolutely in love with pattern sewing. I tried and tried and then successfully made shorts for hubby and I; the rest is history.
This is the story of how pattern sewing literally saved my life.
