As I sit here planning for next year’s Switch Script designs I can’t help but to think back to when I thought this subscription idea was disintegrating into the earth in front of my eyes. Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic, but that’s about how it felt at the time.
It was April 2020 and I had blocked off a couple of weeks to design + make the rest of 2020’s subscription Switches. I had a general idea in my head, so now it was time to bring the ideas to life by creating them on my computer using my Silhouette Studio software. After I configured the designs I would then be able to use my machine to cut the pieces of fabric to size + finally stitch around the outside of the pieces for the final product. You can read more about the process I used here.
I’m not even kidding you when I say that’s the exact moment that my computer completely crapped out on me. For a full week, when I had planned to be designing + creating, I was YouTubing all the broken computer videos, texting friends + even had my neighbor come over and try computer things for a whole evening. Nothing. RIP computer.
So there I was needing to create 8 sample Switches I had promised people plus needing send out next month’s Switch Script in about 7 days…with one of my main tools for creating broken beyond repair. At some point I remember laying on the floor, hands pressed into my forehead, feeling myself getting really hot + panicky, and wondering what the heck I was going to do!!
At this time my subscription list mostly comprised of close friends so I heavily considered emailing them to ask for an extension on their monthly order while my computer was fixed. But something inside of me knew that wasn’t the answer. Deep down I wondered if this was an opportunity to try a more free-style/free-motion type of sewing I’ve always been drawn to.
The thought scared me and excited me at the same time. I’ve never done this method for paying customers before...or really much of all. Could I make the Switches turn out well enough that people would want to pay for them? The anxiety provoking questions flooded through my head but also the faint reminder that the scary times are when the most growth can happen...that fear is just an emotion that belongs in the passenger seat not the driver seat.
So there we were, me in the driver seat, fear as a very, very close passenger and Orrick laying right next to both of ‘us’. I grabbed a pencil, a bunch of scrap paper and pulled up “how to draw flowers in a watering can” on YouTube on my phone [thank you Shayda Cambell for your channel]. Fast-forward through hours of doodling flowers and then attempting lots of practice ones on my sewing machine I finally produced my first fully free motion/thread sketched Switch. And with a few texts of the picture to some friends their responses gave me just enough encouragement that this might be a new path for me + Switch Stitch. Thanks friends ☺️
After sending out May’s Switch Script I got to work on creating the rest of the year using this new [to me] method of thread sketching. And although the process took longer than I had originally planned for I had a handful of Switches that I was uber proud of. They were so much more my style, my creations, pieces of my art than what I started Switch Stitch with. They weren’t perfect and all of them were a little different from each other because they weren’t cut from a computer…and I loved them ♥️ And then I took them to a craft market + I sold out of the rest! Other people were loving my designs too!
Although my computer has now been fixed + is ready to cut fabric again, I am so excited to create next year’s Scripts using only the designs I can make with free motion thread sketching. Through this roller-coaster of a situation I learned first hand that constraints grow creativity, expand skill sets and develop massive self-confidence. Bring on the constraints world…well in a easy to digest pace please + only when I’m ready 🤣
CLICK HERE TO STAY IN THE KNOW ABOUT NEXT YEAR’S DESIGNS