One of my favorite events every June for the past few years is Common Threads, an event put on by Baby Lock and their parent company Tacony for the bloggers and brands they work with. Really y’all, this is like a big sewing family reunion.
One of the things I love about working with Baby Lock is that they really care about everyone they work with, from their customers to their bloggers to their community. So this year we got instructions to bring cocktail attire for a kickoff event at the St. Louis Fashion Fund.
After I figured out exactly what “cocktail attire” entailed (cocktail events are not my thing, y’all) I was excited to see what this was all about. I ended up wearing the silk/cotton dress from this post and I patted myself on the back for not doing my typical thing of deciding I had nothing to wear and making something new at the last minute that only gets worn once. My hair, however, was another story. I forgot to pack my straightening iron, so I had the messiest crown braid ever for the evening because that was all I could do with my flight flattened hair that had been pulled back all day. Here I am with Heather and Lindsay.
I had no clue that St. Louis used to be second only to New York as a garment production center, did you? The space they have is right downtown and has a very cool modern industrial vibe. And it was filled with couture. We also got to meet several of the incubator designers that created these garment designs.
The first floor space is this high ceilinged flex space full of windows. Behind the area where we’re mingling there are studios for each of the fashion incubator participants.
And upstairs is a sewing space – they’re working to move a lot more of the designers’ production to this second story.
The next day we were back at the Tacony Achievement Center, which is basically sewing machine heaven.
And I was honored to get to teach a class on how to make post surgical camisoles for mastectomy patients.
One of the cool things about Common Threads is that it brings all types of sewists together – quilters, garment sewists, and embroidery enthusiasts. So it was fun to teach the quilters about serging, and then later I got help with quilting and embroidery. And all the camisoles we made for donations were also a plus!
And of course, I love how Common Threads fills my creativity cup for the next year, until I get to see my sewing family again.
Natalie (QSOgirl)
Wow, that looks like an incredible event!!