Why I Stopped Sewing (and Started Again)

You never know how your words can affect someone.

As a recovering, life-long pessimist who euphemistically referred to herself as a “realist” — I have been working on reframing my mindset. Instead of discarding each year as complete garbage (a bit dramatic), I have been searching for the good parts: the rainbows after the storm, the diamonds in the rough, the tiny moments of reprieve amidst the chaos. Glass half full; lemons into lemonade. So on and so forth.

But this isn’t about 2023. As I mentioned before, I only just stopped thinking of 2019 as “last year.” This retrospective is about how 2020 — largely a complete dumpster fire of year for just about everyone in the world — brought me full circle. I have a surprisingly easy time finding the good in what was indisputably a very bad year, like spending every day with our beloved cats and making huge lifestyle changes that would turn out to be exactly what we needed. And on a more frivolous but wildly life-improving level, I started sewing again. Who would’ve thought that making hundreds of masks would renew my love of sewing? Certainly not me.

Back in my habitat, with my sewing machines, kitty cat Lacy, and a dress and jacket made from a tablecloth. 2023.

If you only recently started following me, you probably recognize that sewing is a large part of my life. If you’ve been following me since the beginning, you probably remember it used to be my career. But if you started following me anywhere in the middle, you may have never known me as the sewing type until I picked it back up again. And that’s because blogging killed my love for sewing. I traded in my serger for a laptop and a server.

Well, I guess I can’t blame it on blogging — that feels as dramatic as denouncing a collective 365 days as garbage. As with just about anything, it’s a lot more nuanced than that. 

How I Started Sewing

[In the voice of Sophia Petrillo] Picture it, South Florida, 1984:

Half of my interests were borrowed straight from the oldest people in my early life: my great-grandparents. Playing Scrabble, reading, watching old Hollywood movies and classic shows, listening to Patsy Cline and Nat King Cole, and of course, sewing.

My great-grandparents, Moe and Papa.

My great-grandparents were my heroes. In my eyes, Papa hung the moon. A decorated WWII Navy Frogman, his heroism was more conventional, decorated, and officially recognized. But for me, it was the way he loved us all — his great-granddaughters — in the way a father should. He once rushed to drive almost two hours round trip just so I didn’t have to sleep one night without my stuffed panda Snowball. I didn’t even have to ask; he just knew it was important. I’ll never forget that kind of selfless love.

Moe — his wife and my great-grandma — was more of an unconventional sort of hero. She was a total spitfire at a time when women were expected to be demure, the smartest woman I knew despite never making it past middle school, and she could sew anything from nothing. That felt like magic to me. Rebel heart, quick wit, and a wiz on the sewing machine. She was everything — and she was self-taught. Walked right into a factory as a teenager and told them she could sew; she could not. She watched and learned and became an in-demand seamstress in no time. 

And then she taught me.

I loved the idea of “Make-do and mend” and learning new skills to be more self-sufficient. The ingenuity of housewives during the Great Depression and WWII — the many things they could make with a feedsack, how they could stretch rations into multiple meals —  was absolutely fascinating to me. Though I never did learn how to cook — Moe wasn’t really known for that either — I quickly developed a love of sewing. She taught me the basics on her machine, an old Consew that I still use to this day. And just like Moe, I ended up teaching myself the rest. Because just like Moe, that’s how I learn best: on my own, through trial and error. Measure twice, cut once. What ye sew, ye shall also rip.

Make-Do and Make a Living

2007 Postlapsaria

I started my clothing line, Postlapsaria, with that very ethos of make-do and mend. I would buy old clothing from the thrift store and remake it into something new. Though it was more out of necessity than anything, I romanticized it. I liked the idea of giving clothing a second chance at life, of repurposing something that might have ended up in the garbage. I also liked making extra money for college books and late nights out at Steak ’n Shake, and always having something “new” to wear. I knew I wasn’t the most skilled seamstress — I was no Moe, that’s for sure — but I knew enough to make a basic garment and figure it out along the way. 

2005, if you couldn’t tell by the hair. Everything I wore was vintage or handmade, or a bit of both.

Much of the clothing I created was made out of vintage, deadstock fabrics or reconstructed from old clothing. This style was the “Maisy” in 2009.

For several years, Postlapsaria was my main income. Enough people liked it to make a modest living for myself. I got so many amazing opportunities and features because of my silly little clothing line that I decided to pursue it more seriously. I did a couple of fashion shows with MAC Cosmetics, was featured in magazines and newspapers all over the globe, and reached peak indie-girl euphoria when Zooey Deschanel purchased a piece from my collection (though I never got to see her in it!). 

Baby Kim and Keiko in 2008, both in full Postlapsaria looks.

Eventually, I moved to NYC with the intention of continuing my line. It was a bit embarrassing when writers or buyers would ask to visit my showroom since I worked out of my tiny apartment in Brooklyn and didn’t have one, but things were happening quickly and life was just very exciting. I couldn’t believe that a mostly self-taught clothing maker was getting noticed. 

The original header for KeikoLynn.com, 2008

The Best and Worst, The End and Beginning

And then the best and worst thing happened to me, all at once: my blog became bigger than my line.

I say best because without my blog, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Stumbling into this line of work has been a wild and incredible experience.

I say worst because being thrown into the NYC blogging scene during its heyday destroyed my confidence as a fledgling clothing designer. Despite being surrounded by people who were leaps and bounds more talented and formally educated than me, I was never made to feel less than by anyone I ever met in the fashion industry. I had my own insecurities and imposter syndrome to overcome, but I was lucky in that most people I met were at best, welcoming and encouraging and at worst, indifferent but never cruel.

So what was it about the blogging world, of all things, that convinced me to give up my clothing line and all but abandon my sewing machine for the better part of a decade? It all started with one person’s comments and somewhat rapidly unraveled from there. I’m embarrassed to even type that out. One person who likely had no idea what an impact she made. 

Independently, none of it was a big deal. But all those little things added up and ate away at me. You know how sometimes you can just tell when someone doesn’t like you from the minute they lay eyes on you? That was my gut feeling the moment we met. Maybe it was because she opened our meeting with, “Wow, you look nothing like I thought you would.” Maybe it was the way she said, “I remember when I used to make clothing like that before I went to fashion school.” 

Little digs. All. the. time. 

At that point in time, it was a teeny tiny blogging world. We were always in the same rooms. I was also young, impressionable, and lacking in self-confidence to let things roll off my back. If this happened today, I can confidently say I would not give a single care. Back then, I just wanted to belong and the harder I tried to make her like me, the more it backfired.

I was very open about being self-taught and even had this horrible tendency to almost apologize for my lack of experience. It was a pre-emptive self-defense mechanism that was almost never needed but often employed anyway. Except, as it turns out, when I was around this one person. 

The worst was at a private handbag event, as a small group of us sat around, drinking tea. The brand’s rep said something nice about my clothing line, and then that particular blogger asked me question after question to test my technical knowledge (none) and further cement my status as a woefully inexperienced and uneducated designer. I felt my face turn hot and wanted to disappear. I couldn’t wait to leave that event so I could cry in the privacy of my apartment. Because I didn’t have a studio, just my room. And I didn’t have employees, it was just me. I didn’t know what half of the technical terms she threw at me meant, because I was uneducated.

To this day, I’m still unsure why she seemed hell-bent on making me feel so small. But we were both young and likely dealing with our own struggles and insecurities, so I truly wish her well and don’t harbor any ill feelings. Maybe I struck a nerve or simply rubbed her the wrong way. She never said; I never asked. But luckily, I met leaps and bounds more friendly faces and as the world of blogging got bigger, our paths soon stopped crossing. 

The effects, however, were longer-lasting and slowly ate away at me. In real life, I stopped telling people that I had a clothing line, even though it was still my source of income. I quit wearing my own designs and started buying new clothing. And once my blog’s income overtook Postlapsaria, I eventually ceased making clothing altogether. As my blog got bigger, it was easier to just let it go than to keep fighting that feeling of being a complete imposter. I kept telling myself I’d bring it back when I had the time to learn more, when I had the funding to hire a real team. But I never did. Postlapsaria had an under-construction message for many years before I just completely let it go.

One person may have planted that seed, but I tended to that garden myself. Success in a parallel space made it easy for me to just give up and try something new rather than continue pursuing a tainted dream. I buried my machines deep within my closet and brought them out maybe once a year. I started a couple of projects and abandoned them. It felt like a failed past life that wasn’t worth revisiting.

Rediscovering My Love of Sewing

When 2020 came and we needed masks for essential workers, I brought out my machines and got to work. I made hundreds and hundreds of masks for friends, family, neighbors and complete strangers. It gave me such a sense of focus in an uncertain time, and I found myself looking forward to the hum of my machines each day. 

I got over my weird insecurities and started sewing again. I made outfits out of old bedsheets and eventually revisited my old favorite fabric shop for new materials. I made dresses with matching masks and worked on some Halloween costumes. I found joy in making my own clothing just for the fun of it and even got brave enough to make some of my own sewing tutorials. Though I started working my creations into more of my posts, which would technically blur the line between hobby and work, sewing was a lot more enjoyable when my income wasn’t directly dependent on it.

My Merry-Go-Round costume, made out of vintage bedsheets. 2023

I don’t regret changing courses. I’d rather be where I’m at now than trying to keep up with the pace of clothing production. What I wish is that I would have pivoted without completely giving it up as a hobby. I wish I cared less about the 1% of naysayers and focused on the 99% of people cheering me on. Coulda shoulda woulda.

At least I’m here today, back at the Consew where I made my first stitches. I’m still learning new things every day. Being self-taught is actually pretty cool and nothing to be ashamed of. I should have looked a little closer at my great-grandma, Moe: a middle school dropout and self-taught seamstress whom I idolized till her dying day. She was proof that the desire for knowledge can burn brightest in those who don’t have the privilege of a formal education.

In this day and age, when there’s a helpful tutorial for just about anything you want to learn about, I hope that you never let anyone’s opinions stop you from learning a new skill or taking up a new passion.

I also hope that this very, very long post doesn’t dissuade you from subscribing to my posts. I promise I’m not always this wordy.