Transcript:

Note: This transcript has been made from the Love to Sew Favourite re-release version of this episode, published on June 1, 2021. You can listen to this version of the episode here:

Caroline: We are recording today on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish and Kwakwaka’wakw peoples, including Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, Musqueam, and K’ómoks first nations. Hello, Love to Sew listeners. We’re currently in our podcast off season. So we’re taking a little break from recording right now.

Helen: This summer, we’re excited to revisit some of our favorite episodes from years past. We hope you will love these reruns as much as we do. Remember, you can still access the show notes by going to lovetosewpodcast.com and searching for the episode. If you want more Love to Sew, head over to our Patreon. We have a lot of fun over there, and we appreciate our Patreon fam so, so much.

Caroline: For $5 U.S. per month, you’ll get access to our monthly bonus episode. Our Patreon episodes really feel like a catch-up with friends. This is where we share what we’ve been up to in our personal lives, our businesses, what we’re sewing, and things we’re loving like recipes, podcasts, TV shows, board games and more. Throughout the month, we also share behind the scenes photos.

I recently gave our patrons a sneak peek of some of our upcoming exclusive Blackbird releases, and Helen you’ve given sneak peaks of patterns too, right? 

Helen: Yes, it is top secret stuff just for our Patreon supporters. And if you join at $10 U.S. per month, you will get 15% off discount codes for Blackbird Fabrics, Helen’s Closet, and our Love to Sew swag shop. And this code can be reused again and again, so it’s a great deal, especially if you shop with us frequently. Plus, you’ll get a bonus mini-sode where we answer a patron question or cover a specific sewing topic. So you can learn more and sign up to support us at patreon.com/lovetosew. 

Caroline: And don’t worry folks, we’ll be back in September 2021 with a fabulous new season of Love to Sew. Now let’s get to this Love to Sew favorite.

Hello and welcome. I’m Caroline. 

Helen: And I’m Helen. 

Caroline: And we love to sew. This is a podcast for makers where we talk about sewing a handmade wardrobe and bring you interviews with inspiring creatives and small business owners in our community. 

Helen: Today, we are chatting with Jen Hewett an accomplished printmaker and the author behind the book Print, Pattern, Sew. Jen teaches us all about block printing, from the design of the block to the act of printing it on fabric. She also shares her thoughts on making mistakes, listening to your body and turning your creative hobby into a business. Print, Pattern, Sew. Print, pattern, sew. Print, pattern, sew. Print, pattern, sew.

Hello, Jen. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. 

Jen: Thanks so much for having me. 

Helen: Can you start us off by introducing yourself to our listeners? 

Jen: Um, my name is Jen Hewett, and I am a textile artist, surface designer, teacher, and printmaker, and I’m based in beautiful San Francisco, California. 

Caroline: Oh, that sounds so lovely. We have been totally captivated by your recent book, and we’re so excited to share your knowledge and passion on the show today. But the first thing we always ask our listeners is about their sewing journey. So can you tell us a little bit about how and when you learn to sew? 

Jen: Yes. So I think I first learned how to sew when I was maybe 10 years old and going to a summer camp, uh, through girls club.

And I spent a lot of time sewing on a sewing machine. I made a couple of bags, and then I didn’t do anything with sewing for another couple of years until I was in high school. And one of the girls in my class, um, went to this fancy cotillion every month where she would have to, sew her, she would have to wear essentially a formal gown. And so she would go through Seventeen Magazine and teen magazine prom issues, and she would make herself all these beautiful, um, fluffy dresses for, for each month. And I told my parents about this and they misunderstood. I really wanted to go to cotillion because I wanted to wear fancy dresses, but they heard that I wanted to learn how to sew.

So they bought me a sewing machine which I think I used once and then didn’t pick up again until I was in my late twenties or early thirties. And at some point in my early thirties, I just decided, I think I wanted a pair of curtains. So I whipped out the sewing machine and sewed a couple of straight lines and, uh, had a set of curtains and started taking classes to learn how to sew bags.

And that’s really where I was for many, many years until I think it must have been indie pattern designers came out. And they would have sewalongs on their blogs. And I figured out that I could learn how to sew or pretty much teach myself how to sew clothes just by buying those patterns and sewing alongside the sewalongs.

So that didn’t really happen until probably 2012 or 2013. And, you know, once you start sewing your own clothes, it’s pretty hard to stop. Um, so I’ve just been moving forward since then and 

Caroline: I love that. We completely agree with you there because we were obsessed with sewing over here, but your new book is called Print, Pattern, Sew, so it’s not just about sewing. It’s also about block printing and creating patterns with block printing. And we’re so excited to chat with you about that, but I would love to know a little bit more about your creative journey and how you got into printmaking. 

Jen: Oh, do you want the short story or the long story?

Caroline: Oh, I don’t know.

Jen: Well, I have a degree in English literature, um, from Berkeley here in the Bay Area. And as you can imagine, it’s not the most marketable of degrees. So I kind of futzed around and worked in education for a little bit after college and then decided at some point that I wanted to be a graphic designer. And then decided that wasn’t for me and opened up a stationery business.

And this would have been like 99, 2000, uh, the first dot-com, which we is what we called it back in the day, the first dot-com boom happened then. And all my friends were going to work for these tech startups. And here I was like, I’m going to open a stationery business. I’m going to do the most un-techy thing possible.

So I did that for a few years and had a good run of it but made all the mistakes you make when you’re 26, um, and running your own business and have all this freedom and kind of ran that business into the ground. After that, I had to get a regular job again. So I had a fantastic corporate job working for an online learning and user experience company and was doing HR and operations and a little bit of finance. And as a little break from that, I decided I was going to take sewing classes first and then, um, a screen printing class. And in 2008, I took my very first screen printing class and was hooked and thought, okay, this is what I want to do for a living.

I need to figure out how I can get to the point where this is what I do, where I’m a printmaker. And the economy intervened and helped me along that path. Because at the end of 2008, I was laid off. Um, in fact, because I was doing HR for the U.S. Office, I had to lay everybody off on the team, including myself.

And I did that the week before Christmas. I had unemployment and some savings and all of a sudden, I had all this time to go to the studio. And so I spent tons of time, when I wasn’t looking for a job. And this was 2008 to 2010. And if you remember what the economy was doing in those days, um, there just weren’t a lot of jobs.

So I had a lot of time. And what I found was that the more I printed, the better I got. Surprise, surprise, but this was also when Etsy was, kind of, in its heyday and social media, or not even social media, but blogging had really taken off, and people were reading blogs, not just, not just the few, but it had become a thing.

And so I would post my work on my blog. I’d put things on Etsy, and my work started to sell. And it was a pretty amazing feeling that no one wanted to hire me. Yet I was able to sell my work to strangers all over the world. It was really cool, but I had started out by printing on paper because paper’s inexpensive.

It’s easier to print on than fabric, but people didn’t know what to do with prints. So I had the idea of maybe just printing on some fabric, and at that point, all I could, sew were bags and really, really simple bags. So I printed on fabric and I sewed them into bags, and I sold through my first couple of bags in, in days, um, and kept doing that and found that people were much more willing to spend, at the time, $28 on a bag than they were willing to spend like $15-20 on a print. I think things have maybe changed a bit, but I felt like I was onto something. And I always loved fabric, even though I really hadn’t been able to sew. I love having things that are tactile, and it just seemed absolutely the right fit for me. So, once I shifted my focus to that and decided I wanted to be a printmaker and a textile artist, it was really easy to, kind of, figure out a path forward and to start to create projects, to challenge myself, and to build on my skills.

Um, yeah, and so that’s how I became a printmaker initially. And then I think it was probably 2014, I, so backing up a little bit, I couldn’t support myself as a printmaker, um, at that point, and I was lucky enough that I had enough experience with HR that some places, or some people I’d worked with in the past at different jobs, asked me if I would do HR consulting for their businesses for, like, you know, four hours a week here and there.

And around 2010, I launched that and was able to pick up enough work that I was doing anywhere from 20 to 32 hours a week of HR consulting which more than supported me and then also gave me the flexibility to go to the studio and print, to go to, to fairs when I needed to. It was, it was a really nice balance.

And then, as my printmaking stuff started to take off, I could ramp down my consulting hours. I was working this kind of intense, um, HR gig, where I had a client that was starting a business from scratch. And so I hired their first 20 to 25 employees and onboarded them. And it was super intense. And I felt like if I didn’t set goals for myself for printing on a regular basis, I just wouldn’t print.

So I created a project called 52 Weeks of Printmaking. And every week, the goal was for me to print something different, and I would try out different print media, so not just screen printing. I would also try block printing, etching, monoprints, like a whole bunch of different things, but because my work schedule was so intense and because I tended to procrastinate that year, I ended up not really finishing any prints or starting any prints until the day before I said I was going to share them on social media. And I figured out the fastest thing for me to do was to just do really simple block prints. So I got good at that. I got good at doing really simple shapes and playing around with color and location and trying out different types of fabric. And I would share those, and people started asking me for more information. And because you know, at heart, I’m a business woman and a consultant, I thought, well, I’m not giving this to you for free. I’ll teach you. And so I started teaching, so I taught the class, I still teach the class in person.

Um, and I also set up an online class, and I’ve been doing that now since 2014 or 2015. So when I say that I’m a teacher it’s really, I teach my own curriculum and I, I only teach the one thing really. 

Caroline: And where about, do you teach? Is it at a studio in, you’re in San Francisco, right? So, is it at your own studio or is it at a shop or?

Jen: Um, it’s a school called Handcraft Studio School, and it’s just over the Bay from San Francisco. It’s a really fantastic space, and it’s got just the right setup for, for me. It has big tables and lots of space, but there are also sewing classes that happen there, calligraphy, jewelry, all kinds of different things.

Mainly, one day, anywhere from two to six hour to eight hour classes. So it runs the gamut of, of what you think of as craft with the exception of, there’s not a ton of woodworking just because there aren’t the tools for larger woodworking, but for the most part, like textile arts, some metal arts.

Caroline: And you were talking about your 52 Weeks of Printmaking challenge, and I absolutely love the idea of challenging yourself to do something like this. I think it’s so great. And I commend you for doing it while you’re really busy at work. I’m sure it must’ve been a real challenge to do that. I would love to know a little bit more about how you went about doing the prints.

And you mentioned you were more into screen printing at the time, but then you ended up doing block printing. So what was it about block printing that kind of drew you in and made you want to focus on that? 

Jen: Well, screen printing requires a lot of setup time, and so you have to do your drawing, and then you have to create the film, you have to burn your screens. And then once you screen print, once you’ve put in all that effort, you might as well just do, like, 50 to a hundred of whatever it is you’re printing. Whereas with block printing, you just need a block and a carving tool and a little bit of time, and you’re ready to go. And so that was really what drew me into block printing in the very beginning. It was also just a really good way for me to work out ideas. So I, now I have much better computer skills, in terms of, um, digital design, but, in those days, I didn’t. And so I still find it a lot easier to work with my hands and to do drawings and to manipulate images by hand, to even to do some repeat patterns by hand.

So block printing really allowed me to do that where I could kind of conceptualize what I wanted to do, then do it by hand and then work backwards if I decided I wanted to make it into a digital repeat. Then I could scan everything and clean it up and lay it out on my computer. But there’s just something really tactile and hands-on about block printing that appealed to me and still does appeal to me. 

Helen: I really enjoy it as well. I had the opportunity to try block printing last fall in a little workshop. And I found the carving of the soft blocks so incredibly satisfying. 

Jen: It is. When I teach that class, all of a sudden when everybody’s carving, like, it gets super quiet, and everybody’s just chill and calm, and they don’t want to stop.

And it’s, it’s kind of the best feeling, even, not just to do it myself, but to teach the class and see everybody kind of relax into what they’re doing. 

Helen:  Yeah, for sure. And we would love to know more about how you transferred the block printing onto garments because I think it’s, kind of, a little bit easier to block print onto a smaller piece of fabric and make a bag or a pillow or something like that. But translating that to a garment seems a little bit trickier. So how did you make that transition? 

Jen: Um, so I’m a little bit of an overachiever and after my 2014, uh, project, 52 Weeks of Printmaking, I decided in 2015, or actually at the end of 2014, that my next year’s project would be to block print yardage and then, sew it to clothing because I wanted to do something more complex. And I think people just naturally expected me to continue the 52 Weeks of Printmaking project into the next year. And I was like, I was done. I wanted to do something a little bit more complex, and it turned out to be a lot more complex because I’d never printed yardage before. And just the amount of work that goes into that and the thinking through that you have to do ahead of time to set up your prints so that you can actually do them in repeat. It took me a bit of time to figure out how to do that. But also I, I had just gotten decent at sewing and was able to sew clothes that I wanted to wear that didn’t look like home-ec projects, but I couldn’t find the fabric I liked.

So, and part of that is also San Francisco doesn’t have a ton of resources for affordable, um, or at least at the time, it didn’t have a ton of resources for affordable garment weight fabric. So I would buy plain linen and just print on that and sew that into, sew that to clothing. So I thought it would be a good project for me, but it ended up being really interesting because when you’re doing fabric or printing fabric that will be turned into a garment, you really have to think about scale and placement in a way that you don’t have to think about it when it’s just going to be flat.

You know, if you’re printing three yards of something you’re going to want to use the biggest block possible because it’s a lot of work to print with a tiny, tiny blocks, but also like I, I wear a lot of skirts and things tend to get images, tend to get lost in pleats or in folds, so I would work big. Um, and that wasn’t something I’d considered before. And even if you look at the prints in my book, for the most part, those are fairly large prints. 

Helen: It’s so true what you’re saying. And I find that placement is really difficult, too when you’re thinking about whether or not you’re gonna end up with, like, a flower right on your boob or, like, a pear shape on your butt. Thinking about all that ahead of time. It’s really tricky. 

Caroline: So I, I’m curious to know how long the process takes. Like, if you are doing this project and every month you’re doing a new garment where you are blocked printing the yardage, and then you’re sewing it into a garment. How much time did you have to dedicate each month to this creative project?

Jen: Hm, well, the drawings usually only take a couple of hours, and then the carving, because I’m fast and I’m using a really soft medium, would only take a couple of hours. So I could spend one day just doing drawing and carving. And then printing the yardage, depending on, I mean, depending on the complexity of the print, I would say that I can reasonably print a yard an hour, and if I needed three yards, three hours. For me, still, honestly, um, the part that takes the longest amount of time is piecing together the patterns, the clothing patterns, cutting the fabric, and sewing. Like that, I know I’m going to spend at least a day working on that. Design and carving, printing yardage because that’s something I do so often, I, it seems to fly by pretty quickly for me.

So I would say anywhere from two to two and a half days to do that from start to finish, but because I gave myself a month and I was only doing one a month, I could stagger it throughout the month. And I didn’t always, sometimes I’d wait until the last minute, but for the most part, you know, I’d give myself, like, a Thursday and a Friday and I knew that I’d be finished by the following Monday. 

Caroline: I love that you work on these creative challenges and that you’re an overachiever and you take on these things. So what is it about creative challenges like this that you love so much? Why is it that you like committing to this kind of thing? 

Jen: Because I’ll actually do it if I tell people I’m going to. I mean, I think I I’m internally motivated in many ways, but I think the external expectation goes a long way towards actually getting stuff done.

Helen: Yeah. You need that outer accountability sometimes. And the, social media is a great place to get it I find cause… 

Jen: exactly. 

Helen: …even though I don’t know, the people I’m interacting with personally necessarily, I still feel an obligation, and it’s a really good motivator. 

Caroline: Oh yeah. 

Jen: Because a lot of us get to the point where our social media life blends in with our professional lives. I certainly have gotten a lot of opportunities because of social media, particularly my book, for example, but because, because those two blend together, it’s good to show up as a person who actually gets their stuff done, who does what she says she’s going to do. So I think that’s, that’s an additional layer, too. I want to be that person. 

Helen: Well , you certainly are that person, and we absolutely loved your book, as we said earlier. So can you give our listeners a little introduction to your book and tell them a little bit about it? 

Jen: Yes, so Print, Pattern, Sew is based on my 2015 project, um, of the same name, and in the book, not so much the project, but in the book, I show you how to create designs, carve blocks, and print yardage.

And then in the back, I also have suggested projects as well as really, really simple sewing patterns to make garments or accessories with your block printed yardage. There are also templates in the book. So if you don’t think you can draw, you can just trace my templates and create blocks using my designs.

Yeah. So it’s kind of soup to nuts. Everything, everything that I do in terms of block printing is in that book. 

Caroline: So tell us a little bit more about how the idea for this book came about and how you managed to bring it to fruition. Because you know, it’s not everyone that can actually have, you know, a dream about writing a book and then make it happen. So how did that happen for you? 

Jen: Oh gosh. In, it was towards the end of the year that I did that project, so towards the end of 2015, I thought, oh, this should totally be a book. And it actually had to do with the fact that my friend, Christine, who owns A Verb for Keeping Warm, which is a dye shop and a fabric shop here in the Bay Area, um, she had written and published a book called The Modern Natural Dyer. And it is a really, really complex craft book, so it’s not just about dying fabric or dying yarn. It’s actually also about creating your own dye, um, from natural products and then dyeing your fabric or your yarn and then it has projects that you can do with your dyed items.

And up until that point, most of the craft books that I had seen had been really simple and straightforward and only taught you one process, and that was it. And when Christine’s book came out, I saw that and I thought, oh, there is a market for this book for, for, for way more complex craft books and craft projects that I don’t have to pitch just a simple block printing book.

So I put together, early the next year, a proposal based on my project, and it took me a few days to shoot that and write it and edit it. And then I started sending it out to editors or publishers that I had connections with, so I got a lot of interest from publishers about the book. And then, right when I was going to get offers on the book, another editor just randomly emailed me and said, Hey, I have, I was wondering if you’d be interested in writing a book based on your Print, Pattern, Sew project, and I was like, actually, actually I have, uh, I have a proposal ready to go, and I’m probably going to start getting offers next week, so if you’re interested, you know, I need some information from you by next week.

And that was Jen Urban Brown from Roost, and she is the editor I ended up going with. It was, it all worked out because the other publishers wanted me to alter the book to simplify it. And I kind of held my ground, and I said, no, I want to do the book I want to do. And I know just from reactions on social media to my projects and based on the number of classes I teach in person and online, that people really want this book.

So, this is the book I want to write. And Jen was the only person who was completely in line with my vision for the book and, kind of, gave me free reign to do the book I wanted to do. It was kind of crazy, like, really do all people work this well with their editors? Apparently not, but, um, we just work really well together.

So, that’s where the book came from and it’s actually, the response has been phenomenal. So, we just went into second reprint last week, or yeah, the first reprint last week. So we sold through, um, pretty much our first print run, like a year ahead of schedule. And so we had to order more books. 

Caroline: Wow. Congratulations. That is amazing. 

Jen: I know. It’s so exciting. 

Caroline: Oh my gosh. What an achievement. I would love to know. Why was it so important to you to have sewing as part of the book? Why not just write a book about block printing? 

Jen: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it’s because, if you have fabric, what are you going to do with it?

I mean, you’ve, you’ve got like all of a sudden you’ve got three yards of printed fabric. People don’t necessarily know what to do with it. I wanted to show an end use and to present a case about why this is actually, you know, this is meaningful and worthwhile to do. I, like many other sewers, have a stash of fabric that I, I have not yet touched, but I didn’t want people to block print their own fabric and then just throw it into their stash because we all know that happens. I mean, we all do it, but I wanted to show people really good applications for, you know, a quarter yard of printed fabric all the way up to three yards of printed fabric.

Helen: I love that your book takes people from the very beginning to the finished product. And I think part of the reason why people are interested in that in a book form is because there’s so many tutorials online for various things, but there’s not necessarily places that are bringing it all together and giving you that process and seeing you through the whole way. So I absolutely love your vision for the book, and I think it was executed beautifully. 

Jen: Oh, thank you. 

Caroline: Yeah, you cover so much in your book, and we really want our listeners to go check it out if they’re able, but we’d love to entice them a little bit, if we can cover a couple of the tips and maybe a couple of the techniques in the book, if you’re willing. One of the first things we wanted to ask you is what are some of the tools that you need for block printing?

Jen: So block printing requires really few tools. You need a carving tool and a soft block. I don’t use linoleum blocks. Not that I don’t like them, but they are too hard. And you would end up spending days carving instead of hours, so I prefer to use soft blocks. A water-based ink, and I use screen printing ink instead of block printing ink for this, because block printing ink for textiles is going to be oil-based.

Um, so I use water-based screen printing ink for textiles. You need some something to put your ink on, and you need a roller, and you need some cotton batting to protect your table and to help with the print quality and, uh, you need fabric and that’s pretty much it. And a pair of hands, or even just one hand, should be good.

Helen: Just one hand. 

Jen: Just one hand. Yeah, and a quilting ruler, if you want to do repeat patterns. And a lot of people already have a grid or quilting ruler, if you, if you sew, so it’s helpful to have that. 

Caroline: Oh, perfect. And where can one buy these supplies? Are these readily available online? 

Jen: They are at least in the U.S. And Canada. Um, so most major art supply stores carry this, except for the fabric, they’ll, uh, and the batting. Here, I like to use Dick Blick, and this is in no way sponsored by Blick. Although if Blick wants to sell my books around the country, I would gladly, uh, allow them to do that. Um, but Blick is a really good chain here. I don’t know if there’s anything comparable in Canada, but I have had online students from Canada who’ve had an easy time finding supplies. Any local art supply store should have almost everything as well because these are fairly standard tools. And then, you know, the regular places that shall not be named, like the very large online retailers. I know they have them. I don’t necessarily order from them.

Caroline: That’s good to know. 

Helen: Fair enough. And you mentioned that oil versus the water-based ink. So can we talk about that for a little bit and just the distinction between the two. Why can’t you use oil on fabric? 

Jen: You actually can use oil on fabric. The block printing inks for fabric are formulated specifically for fabric. Because they’re oil-based, they tend to have a bit of an oil smell. They smell like linseed oil, and depending on your nose sensitivity, it might make you a little loopy. But also when you’re working with a soft block, they work best with water-based inks. And so, because I have not yet found a good block printing ink, that is water-based that will work for fabric, I just use screen printing ink. Because I was a screen printer, I had a ton of that ink lying around anyway. And I like how translucent it is. I like that it’s easy to mix, um, and easy to store. Whereas the oil-based block printing inks are a little bit harder to mix. They’re way more expensive. And they’re a pain in the butt to store.

Helen: Thank you. And the other thing I wanted you to clarify is the soft block versus the hard block. For anyone who’s never done block printing, I feel like that might be a little confusing. What’s the difference between them? 

Jen: So the soft block is usually going to be vinyl, rubber, or some kind of synthetic block, and it is just easier to carve. So if you think about rubber stamps and I’m not a huge rubber stamp fan, but rubber stamps, it’s kind of equivalent material that’s used to make rubber stamps only it’s much thicker. Linoleum is much harder to carve. I actually have friends who grew up in Ireland who said that it was so cold in Ireland, that when they carved their linoleum blocks, they had to put them on the radiator to warm them up so that they could carve them otherwise, they would have hurt themselves trying to get the tool into the block. But also when you’re block printing with them on fabric, you have to use the oil-based ink. It’s all, like, these little technical nerdy, geeky things that I love, but sometimes they were, everybody else finds them boring. So I just tell them, you know, just do it the way I tell you to do, and it’ll all work out.

Helen: Well, that’s fair. I love how every craft has those super nerdy little details that you learned and tidbits you pick up along the way. I think it makes it so much fun. 

Caroline: So one of the questions I think our listeners are going to have in their head right now is: can I block print in a small space? Like what if I’m a renter? I have a small apartment. Is this something that I can just do at home, in my own space? 

Jen: Oh, absolutely. So when I first started block printing, or even screen printing, the only room I had available to print in was the back porch of my apartment. And it was, it is still my screen printing studio, but it’s a 54 square foot room which is about the same size as a king size mattress, if not smaller.

So absolutely. You just need a table with some space on it and, particularly, if you’re a person who’s used to living in small spaces, you know how to make the most out of that space. I sometimes would only print half the width of the fabric at a time and then let it dry and move things over. I mean, you have to get a little bit creative, but you really don’t need a lot of room.

And if you don’t, if you don’t have a ton of room, then maybe don’t try to print like eight yards at a time. Maybe just stick with two, 

Caroline: Be reasonable, people. 

Jen: Wait, no, it’s funny cause I teach, I teach online and I teach in person, and there’s always that one person who’s, like, super ambitious without really knowing much about the, about what’s required in terms of skill. Because let’s face it, like, I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I do it for a living, and I make it look easy. Because for me, at a certain point, it is easy. But that means that social media sometimes sets up the expectation that this stuff is going to be easy. And there will be someone who will come into the class, and she’s like, I’m hoping I can print my curtains in this class.

Alright, well how big is your window, cause it? Oh, you know, it’s just a typical San Francisco window which is 108 inches, um, from top to bottom. So, like, yeah, it’s not going to happen, not your first time out, maybe not even within your first month. You’ll get to it, but, you know, start with small expectations of what you can get done and then build from there.

And once you know what it is that you’re doing, it’s kind of like sewing, right? You just do the next more difficult thing. Like I didn’t sew invisible zippers for ages cause I was intimidated by them, but I got to the point where, in order to move forward, I had to sew an invisible zipper. So I learned how to sew an invisible zipper.

And it’s kinda like with block printing, too. You might not be able to do it from the very beginning, but if you could just keep working and pushing yourself through it, you’ll figure out how to make it work, and not just in terms of skill, but also in terms of the scale and the amount of space that you need and how you’re going to work within a tiny space.

Caroline: That makes a lot of sense. I wanted to talk a little bit more about the subjects that work well for block prints. I noticed that, in your book, you do a lot of these like really beautiful graphic florals. I didn’t see a ton of geometrics in there. So is there a particular type of print that you think works better for block prints? Or do you think it’s, kind of, just whatever is your style or whatever you feel like doing? 

Jen: Yeah, it’s really whatever your style is. Um, the reason there aren’t geo, geometrics in that book was just that I decided I wanted to focus on botanicals. But when I teach the class and I have, a lot of times, people who are, like, very scared and they say they don’t know how to draw.

First of all, you know, you took the class, so you think, you probably, do have some idea that you can draw. Your just don’t think you can draw as well as, say me or, another artist. Um, but often in those classes, the best prints are by the people who say they can’t draw. And they just work on simple shapes with a little bit of detail. And then they play around with placement and color. And they end up being super compelling and interesting, much more so than the more complex blocks. So it really, it really just depends on what your point of view and your taste is. 

Helen: Yeah, I could see that being a hurdle for a lot of people, that drawing aspect of it, but the, some of the most beautiful prints are those simpler prints. And you mentioned that people were drawn to that when you did your printmaking challenge, that when you had, you know, you were rushed for time and you had to do it really fast, you were doing simpler things and that people were engaging with those even more. So it just goes to show that it doesn’t have to be complicated. 

Jen: I think we always make things harder than they need to be.

Helen: And what about the designing of the block itself and the playing with the positive versus the negative space? Can you talk about that? 

Jen: You know, it’s funny, I think because I just do it so much. I don’t think that hard about it. One of the things that I always instruct people to do in my classes, and also in the book, is to do a drawing that looks exactly the way they want their print to look.

And if they set up their drawing, they can see where the imbalances are. So if, if it’s just too much heaviness, maybe they need to put in some negative space, but I don’t know that it’s even something that I think about that hard anymore. 

Caroline: Yeah. That’s one of the things that, kind of, surprised me when I was reading through your book because I have zero experience with block printing, and I, sort of, imagined just going directly onto the block and just carving a design.

I didn’t realize that you would sketch it out first and then transfer that onto the block and then carve out, you know, what you had already sketched. So that makes a lot of sense, and it makes it feel a little bit more approachable that you have that freedom to kind of sketch out ideas. And then once you have it perfect, then you go onto the carving.

Jen: Right? Well, and I tell people in my class, they need to work out their issues on paper first because once they get to the block and they make a mistake, it’s just, well, there will be tears. So put it on the piece of paper, and erase, erase, erase, and make all the mistakes there. And then, and then we can go to your block. And actually what I teach the class, um, in order to do the transfer from your sketch paper to your block, you need to use tracing paper.

And when I teach the classes, I don’t give them the tracing paper until I’ve verified that their drawings are going to be able to translate okay to the block. And I always say, if you have to explain your drawing to me, it’s not going to work. You got to draw it, and you have to draw it exactly the way you want it to appear.

Um, and I think that actually is hard for some people because they’re overthinking it. And they’re like, I say, if it’s going to print, it needs to be shaded in. But the positive and negative space, I think some people are just wired a little bit differently, and it’s a much harder concept to grasp. So paper’s great. Make all those, make all your mistakes on paper. 

Helen: And we wanted to ask you about making mistakes on the block, too because it seems like a bit of an unforgiving medium when you’re carving into something you can’t just put that back. 

Jen: Right. Just got to let it go. Like you make a mistake, it’s an improv, and you learn to work around it or love it.

Um, also, so I’ve been doing this long enough that I know I can look at a block and I can say, okay, that’s going to print just fine. But when you’re new to it, you often can’t see that everything’s going to be okay until we put ink on the block, and we do a test print. Things always look way jankier on the block until you’ve inked it.

And once you’ve inked it, everybody’s like, oh yeah, that looks fun. It looks great. And they’re always happy with their work. Don’t, don’t stress over it too much. And if you make a big mistake, just, kind of, move around it, and go onto the next thing. 

Caroline: Those imperfections they’re, they’re like character. They add character.

Jen: Well, it’s handmade, right? Nobody’s expecting this to be perfect. There is, nobody going to die because you made a mistake on your block. Like really, yeah, it’s fine. 

Caroline: Not life or death. We say that… 

Jen: No.

Caroline: …a lot. It’s not life or death. It’s just sewing. 

Jen: Yeah, exactly. It’s just printing, like really. 

Caroline: So can we talk a little bit about fabric? What kinds of fabric work best for block printing? Or can we just block print on any fabric? Can you give us a little bit of info about that? 

Jen: It depends on the type of ink you’re using. Usually, it will say on the bottle of ink ,or the jar of ink, but for the most part, cotton, linen, polyester, and rayon work a lot of times, too, but I tend to use cotton, linen, cotton-linen blends, or cotton-silk blends.

Um, it does not work well on silk, just 100% silk. It doesn’t adhere very well. And also, or the ink doesn’t adhere very well. Also if the fabric is too lightweight, as a lot of silks tend to be, the ink can impact the drape. And so you’ll have a lot of warping, and things won’t hang correctly, but I tend to like to work with natural fibers, with the exception of silk, and they print up beautifully.

Caroline: Yeah, and in terms of weight and weave, are we looking for something that’s, sort of, like, a midweight or light to midweight and probably a tighter weave? I’m assuming we don’t want too much of a loose weave. We want it to be opaque, right? 

Jen: Right. Yep. A light to medium weight, uh, fabric and definitely a tight weave. What is it, canvas and twill that have, kind of, a weird diagonal pattern on them? Those tend not to work too well because the pattern of your fabric, or the pattern of the weave, will impact your print. So I say, try not to use those. Although when I teach online, somebody invariably wants to use the canvas, and I’m like, do it, you know, you’ll just get a different look.

Yeah, and then I don’t like printing on already printed, commercially printed pieces of fabric. Those use different inks and, you know, tends to be too busy, but I’ve had people try it and it looks, it looks fine. It’s just not, it’s not my thing. I prefer to have something that’s a hundred percent printed by me.

Caroline: And is there anything that you recommend doing to the fabric prior to printing? Is it like something that you would want to prewash or pretreat in some way to allow the dye to adhere?

Jen:  Yeah, definitely prewash it. That’s, that’s really big. Uh, you want to get rid of any sizing because the sizing can keep the ink from settling onto the fibers. Also, iron, iron, iron, iron.

Oh my gosh. So much of sewing, I swear, is just ironing. Iron, because wrinkles will impact your print quality. You know, don’t print on top of the wrinkle because then you’ll have, kind of, a messed up print, but really just washing it however you would normally wash that type of fiber and ironing it really well and that’s pretty much all you need to do. 

Caroline: Those are great tips. I’m curious to know what is your absolute favorite type of fabric to print on?

Jen:  There is this beautiful oatmeal color linen from Lithuania that I get from my wholesale supplier in L.A., and it’s just, I don’t know, there’s something about linen that takes both screen printing and block printing really well.

It has just enough texture for the print to be layered and visually interesting without being distracting. And also I live in California, so I have fairly mild weather year round, and linen is just really nice to use and wear year round. 

Helen: Yeah, I think linen really adds to that handmade vibe too. It’s a little bit wrinkly sometimes, but it just embraces the block print so well. 

Jen: You can’t be too precious with linen because it does wrinkle. So you’re not actually, like, you know, nobody’s going to complain that you show up in rumply linen clothes or maybe they will, but you know, like, it’s, it’s the nature of the fabric, and you just, kind of, have to work with it. You can’t force it to be something it doesn’t want to be. So it’s just lovely to work with that way. 

Helen: So once you have your block and you’ve sketched it out and you’ve got it all carved and you’re ready to go, how do you go about deciding how to place the different patterns onto your fabric?

Jen: That’s a process that I call “thinking with your hands” which is, I just get out a piece of muslin, piece of scrap fabric that’s maybe a yard long, and I just print until I find a placement and a color scheme I really like. And then I’ll note measurements and maybe create a grid or a little chart for myself that says, you know, this much across vertically, this much across, or across horizontally, this much up and down, this is where this color goes, this is where I rotate it. So I’m really trying to find something that looks good visually first. And then I will work back, backwards and formalize it into really strict measurements that I try to adhere to. So I have nice even repeat patterns that are on the grain of the fabric, but to me, the most fun part is, is playing around. It’s just getting out that fabric and all the ink and just futsing around until I find something I like. 

Caroline: Yeah, I wonder if printing, you know, lengths of fabric is more of a meditative process for you, especially now that you’ve been doing it for so long, or do you still find it, you know, once you get into the actual work of printing, once you’ve decided on your placement, is it a little bit tedious? Like how do you feel about that aspect of the process? 

Jen: Super Zen. It’s lovely. I, I put out a podcast, and I listen, while, while I’m printing. And I started teaching an in-person repeat pattern class because the classes I’ve been teaching for the last four years have been just carving and printing small pieces of fabric.

We don’t get into repeat patterns in that class because we don’t have enough time, but now I teach the repeat pattern in yardage class. And it’s the same thing for all of them. They just, like, get in the zone. People in that class are just, like, silent and grooving and working through it. And it’s really fun to watch.

Caroline: Oh, yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. I would love to take that class. It sounds really zen. 

Jen: It is, it’s just, like, the most mellow chill day. 

Helen: And speaking of getting, kind of lost, in your work, you have this great tip in your book that I want you to share with our listeners about paying attention to your body while you’re working. Can you talk about that? 

Jen: Oh my gosh. So, the first thing is that I think a lot of us, when we get hungry, we tend to ignore our hunger when we’re working, and we try to just like push through the hunger. But what I’ve found is that when I do that, especially when I’m printing, that’s when I start to make mistakes.

So when I teach, I enforce a no-printing lunch break. If people want to come back and start printing after 20 minutes, that’s fine, but they need to take a break and eat because, you know, I don’t want anybody to be cranky pants. Also, I think as an artist, we have a tendency to work through our pain and think, okay, once, no, this hurts right now, but once I stop and I give myself a little rest, I’ll feel better, but I’m going to go through, I’m going to work through this, and then I’ll deal with the pain later.

And that’s no way to work. If your body is a tool, then you want to take the best possible care of your tool so that you can continue to do the work you want to do. Last year, my back went out. It actually went out while I was teaching a class in Portland. I have a slipped disc, and the disc just slipped, and I had to teach the rest of the class sitting in a chair, rolling around the room in this chair. That was a big wake-up call for me because I had spent, since 2008, all this time screen printing and not really thinking about my posture, not really thinking about the ergonomics of printing. 

And I’m fairly young. I’m 43 now. And for my back to have gone out at this age, it was, it was, kind of, shocking. So I am really careful now that, how I lift things, um, how long I work, what shoes I wear when I work, how high my table is, how I bend over to print. I really, really pay attention to what my body is telling me. And if something does not feel good, I stop, and I figure out how I can reconfigure my work so that it does feel okay.

Caroline: This is really important advice. I think Helen and I just sat up a little straighter as you were talking. Okay. Posture. And I think this tip can translate to sewing so well because I find myself, when I’m having, like, a really long sewing session, my shoulders start to hurt, my neck starts to hurt, you know? And then I’m like asking my partner to give me a little neck rub, and it’s, like, I think I need to pay more attention to how my body is, you know, giving me signals during this creative hobby. So I think that’s such a good tip. 

Jen: I have a friend who, um, is a massage therapist, and she actually has a specific type of massage session for makers. 

Caroline: Oh, right. So cool. Okay. I think we’re ready to get into a little bit of the sewing aspect of your book. We wanted to ask you about how you decided on the designs for the garments.

Jen: Well, I knew that I didn’t want any garments that were too fussy, so, and don’t get me wrong, I love things like pleats and princess seams, but I didn’t want anything that was going to break up the overall print. Because, first of all, if you’ve spent some time and you’ve printed three yards of fabric, I don’t know that you’re going to want to sew something super complex, that’s going to require like a week, of sewing time. So I wanted, uh, patterns or designs that really showcased the prints. I had an idea of, kind of, the simplest things that I wear, and wear over and over again. And so there were, you know, like, a couple of blouses and a couple of dresses and then a really simple jacket and a really simple skirt, just really nice, simple garments that, that would show off the designs.

And I put together a little mood board, and I had some ideas and sketch them out, and then I showed them to pattern designers and they, they went to work and they designed around them and made the samples. And I was like, oh yeah, no, this is, this is perfect. This is what I want. I have no pattern drafting skills.

So there was no way I was going to do these on my own, but also it’s fascinating to work with professional pattern designers because you just show them some sketches, give them like a quick brief, and then bam. They’ve got something to you. It’s kind of crazy. Who knew? 

Helen: I think you did a great job choosing. It’s almost like your garments in this book could be a little capsule wardrobe. You know, it’s all you need to get dressed. And there’s some simpler ones in there too cause you have some bags and an apron. So for people who don’t want to sew clothes there’s options as well. 

Jen: Yes, definitely, like, the scarves. I mean, you could also buy a pre-sewn scarf and just print on it and bam, you have a gift, which is what I tell people in my classes.

Like, if you really can’t sew, just go and buy a pack of 10 bandanas from Dharma Trading. And there you go, you’ve got your Christmas gifts or a party favor or something. 

Caroline: Do you have a favorite pattern from the book? 

Jen: I think it’s that, it’s the short sleeve dress because I’ve now made it, I think I’ve made three or four of them in different fabrics, not just my block printed fabric, but also I have a small fabric collection with Cotton and Steel. And so I’ve been making dresses using that fabric, too. I love that. I love that dress. And it works well for San Francisco which is always just a little bit cold, so I can wear it with tights and a sweater in the winter or our summer, our summers are very cold. Our summers are often colder than our winters, but it’s fairly versatile. And when I went on book tour, I just sewed a bunch of those and took them with me. And it was like, yep, there’s Jen in another one of her brightly printed, short sleeve dresses. 

Caroline: I love that. It’s like, you’ve, sort of, developed a personal style around this creative hobby and the block printing thing that you’ve been doing over the years. I’m curious, is most of your wardrobe handmade at this point?

Jen: I’m getting there. I think it’s still 50/50. I haven’t sewn jeans yet. I might, I might actually, I have a pattern. I have the Ginger Jeans pattern. I have some denim. I just don’t have the time. So I’m hoping, maybe in January, I can pick that up and just sew a pair because I wear jeans most often. But almost all of my dresses are handmade. Almost all my skirts are, are me made. And I finally conquered my fear of sewing knits this year, so.. I know. Okay. So I wish I had known earlier that you could actually sew a t-shirt in, like, an hour. Crazy, right? So I found one pattern that worked well for me. And I, like , sewed six merino wool knit t-shirts one Saturday. And I was like, oh great. There’s my winter wardrobe all done. 

Caroline: Oh yeah, I personally love sewing knits. It’s one of my favorite things cause it is so quick, and you can feel so accomplished at the end of the day. Cause you’re like, I made 10 things today. You know, you feel like a rock star, but that’s so great that you conquered knits. We’re planning an episode all about knits.

Jen: And I also want to start sewing lingerie, like, because why not, right? You don’t need that much fabric. So that’s my goal next year, jeans and underwear. 

Caroline: Awesome. You can do it. 

Jen: I know. I just have to do it. 

Helen: I’m really curious to hear, like, as an artist, working with inks and getting messy in your studio, do you ever feel like you can’t wear your handmade clothes or are you, kind of, precious about them at all?

Jen: So I don’t wear a lot of my handmade clothes while I am printing. I tend to wear, like, an ratty old pair of jeans that I’ve had for years and a t-shirt and maybe a beat up sweater, and that’s what I wear when I print. But the rest of my time, like today, I don’t have to print so I’m wearing a skirt I made, um, and a nice t-shirt and yeah, I’m not too worried about that getting dirty, but yeah, if I’m printing, forget it.

I’m, I’m going to be a hot mess. Um, if I have to go outside, I might throw on one of the jackets I’ve made and maybe a scarf. But, for the most part, printing is just dirty work, and I have to wear the dirty clothes. 

Helen: I think that fits with the artistic vibe though. We all love to picture the artist in the studio with the ripped jeans and the ratty t-shirt.

Jen:  A scarf in our hair. Yeah. It’s actually, kind of, true. 

Caroline: So when you’re printing yardage, do you decide what the final garment is going to be before you print the fabric? Or does the fabric generally inspire the garment? 

Jen: I do the garment first, and that’s partly because I think about a hole I have in my wardrobe. So maybe I need this type of dress, for this kind of occasion. So I’ll think about the garment, and then I’ll start to think about the print. Often, too, I see something that I like in a magazine, um, or online and I think, oh, I could make that. I could make it with some adjustments, and I could make that with my own fabric. But I know that if, and it’s the same with shopping for fabric, if I don’t have an end use in mind for fabric, it’s just going to sit in my stash.

So I’m trying to be way better about actually having an idea of what I’m going to do before I go and spend time on three yards of fabric. Because I cleaned out my closet a couple of months ago, and I went through my fabric stash and I, there were yards of fabric that I didn’t know I’d purchased. I was like, oh, this is pretty. When did I get this? Like, why is it sitting here? This is, this is money that I spent. Yeah. So I must sew with that. 

Caroline: We can relate to that. 

Jen: And I have 110 yards of my own fabric for my fabric line, for my fabric collection. So I’ve got to work my way, I have to make a serious dent in that first, before I buy any more.

Helen: And when you buy fabrics, do you find that you’re drawn to the printed fabrics or do you tend to buy solids to, kind of, mix and match with your print? 

Jen: If I’m buying knit fabric, I’ll buy solids, for the most part, or stripes. I have a lot of stripes. I don’t know what it is. I love stripes, like, that’s my favorite color. My friend was house sitting for me, when I went on a quick trip recently, and she took a photo cause I left one of my dresser drawers open, and it was like 20 stripe tops.

And she took a photo of it and texted it to me and said, this, this cracks me up. I’m like, I know it’s a problem. So if I buy a knit, it’s either plain or it’s striped, um, and then wovens, now wovens are mostly printed now, and I’m, I’m attracted to fairly loud prints, still. I mean, you know, I don’t buy, at least when I go to stores, I don’t buy much unprinted fabric because I have wholesale suppliers I can get that from. And they’re usually willing to sell me, like, you know, 10 yards of something and 10 yards of a plain fabric. I can make that go pretty far. I can print on it. I can sew it into a blouse and a dress, but my favorite fabric store ever was The Fabric Store. It’s called The Fabric Store, and they had a branch in LA for a few years.

And they lost their lease, and they closed, and I was so sad. And I went there on the last day to say bye to all the ladies and to, you know, spend a couple hundred dollars on more fabric that I don’t need. They had such a lovely selection of, of knits and wovens. I love that place. I’m so sad they’re gone.

Caroline: Yeah, we’re familiar. And we love them, too. Their merino knits are amazing. Oh, my gosh. 

Helen: Luckily, there’s still the New Zealand location, and they ship internationally. So I still purchase stuff from them, and they have the same, well, maybe not the exact same selection, but they definitely have the merino knits and the linens, and they’re beautiful. 

Jen: I love that place. 

Caroline: So do you have a favorite handmade garment?

Jen:  Right now, I think it’s actually the skirt I’m wearing today. And I think the pattern is the Wedgewood Skirt. It’s a midi length, uh, pleated skirt with a visible zipper in the back. And the skirt I’m wearing today is one of my Cotton and Steel prints that is, it’s pink and it has, or it has a pink ground and then blue and white mountains on it. And it’s just, yeah, uh, summer’s finally come to San Francisco, so I get to wear skirts again. But, right now, this is my favorite. 

Helen: Sounds really lovely. The other thing that I was really curious to ask you, because I am very attracted to prints as well, and I tend to purchase a lot of prints when I do my fabric shopping. And I’ve had many conversations with other sewists about how challenging it can be, sometimes when you are drawn to prints to put together outfits and get dressed. How do you handle that? Do you have any advice? 

Jen: So, my first word of advice is that stripes go with everything. If I want to mix prints,I’ll almost always wear, like, a stripe top and a printed bottom.

And then I tend to, like, the skirt I’m wearing today, I actually have a bag that’s a different print but, kind of, the same color scheme that, it’s a big tote bag, and I’ve been carrying that around and because the color schemes are the same, they don’t look like they clash all that much. And then always throw a solid in there somewhere, like, even if it’s just a solid pair of tights or a solid t-shirt. Got to balance the eye, but I don’t know, sometimes I just want to wear all the prints like I’m a crazy, three year old. Like, it makes me happy, and I work at home, so if I want to do that, I can, you know? And if I feel weird about going out looking like that, then I’ll just put on a denim jacket.

Helen: Well, that’s a great tip to throw on a denim jacket. I mean, your outfits in your book are really beautiful, and you definitely play with prints, and you’re wearing them all together, and it looks great so… 

Jen: Well, that’s the nice thing, too, about creating your own fabric is that if you want to wear all the prints together, you just need to work on, you can work on your color schemes yourself or change the scale of your block, or, you know, use the same block and print it in two different colors on two different pieces of fabric, and mix those together, and you’ll look fine. And at the end of the day, you just have to carry it with enough confidence and just not give a damn about what other people think. And then you look great, right? 

Caroline: So true. Yeah. We want to know about caring for hand printed items. Do you need to do anything special when you’re caring for a block printed garment? 

Jen: Not really. After you heat set it, which is just ironing, again, sewing is so much ironing. Um, after you’ve heat set it with an iron, it’s, the color might fade as any fabric would fade, but that’s about all you need to do. And I, I’m pretty hard on my clothes. I’m the first person to say that because I work for myself sometimes I wear the same thing three or four days in a row.

Um, and you know, I will wear, wear things to work. So I haven’t really seen my clothes lose their ink, or if nothing else, they might show wear just from use, but I think that’s fairly normal. I try not to be too precious about the things that I make. It’s kind of honoring the fact that I have the ability to make more. So, as much as I love an, a garment that, maybe when it goes, it’s time for it to go. And I just trust that I can sew another skirt or print more of that same fabric. It’s okay. 

Helen: Yeah, that’s a good outlook to have. My mom does pottery, and she’s very not precious about it. She really wants people to use her pottery that she creates because that’s its intended purpose, and it deserves to be used for that, you know? 

Jen: Yeah, I have my grandmother’s silver that, it’s so dinged up because I think she used it a lot. And then I use it all the time, too. And I it’s like my daily, you know, I eat my yogurt with a silver spoon, like, why not?

Caroline: So we want to know what are some of the biggest myths about block printing or biggest hurdles that people might face when they’re getting into this craft? 

Jen: Ooh, the biggest myths. Well, I think the biggest myth in any kind of creative endeavor is that you need the approval of someone who’s more skilled than you in order to get started.

And granted, I say that as someone who teaches a class on it, but I think you can just get started. I think that with any creative endeavor, the starting is the big thing, right? That if you spend a lot of time overthinking it and worrying, you’re not going to get to it. So just do it. Like, there’s so much beauty in momentum.

I think the other misconception is that you have to be able to draw. And I think that’s also true for a lot of creative endeavors. Like, people are, they don’t want to identify as an artist because they aren’t good at drawing. And the truth is that creativity is so much more than just drawing. Making is so much more than just drawing.

And if you have an idea of what you like, and what you like does not necessarily involve a very detailed technical sketch, you can work with what you like. Your work doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. It doesn’t have to look like mine, certainly. Your work can look like what your abilities are. And, one of the rules in my class is: if you can draw it, you can most likely carve it and print it.

So when people think that they’re working on something that’s too easy or too ambitious, I’ll tell ’em, you know what, that’s, that’s clearly what you’re attracted to, and that’s where your abilities lie at this moment, and that’s totally fine. 

Caroline: You mentioned earlier about being a business woman and being really business driven. And we’re wondering if you have any advice for folks out there who have a passion for a craft that they want to get more serious about and potentially turn into a business. 

Jen: Oh my gosh. So I’m a big proponent of having hobbies that you don’t monetize or that you don’t necessarily rely on to make your living. I blocked printed, or I was a printmaker, for years, and that was my vocation. I knew it, but that was not how I made my living. I had a day job because, simply because I knew I could not live off of printmaking alone, for a number of years. I think it’s really important to analyze whether or not this is something you want to make money from because when you have to make money from your craft, it changes your relationship with it.

I knew, once I started screen printing, that this is what I wanted to do. And so I changed a lot of things in my life so that I could do it. One of those things was consulting, doing human resources consulting, for a number of years, because I didn’t want to put the pressure on my work to sustain me. That was really, really important.

And I think it’s one of the reasons my work tends to look really different from what the trends are. It’s because I didn’t have to chase trends because I always had another source of income, until fairly recently. I also think that you have to be good at the business part of it. If you want to make a living on a craft, you have to be really good at the business part of it because it’s the easiest part to learn, to be honest, but it’s the hardest part to love. And if you don’t like doing that, you’re just, aren’t going to, or if you don’t understand the importance of it, you’re just not going to make it. And then the final thing is, your craft is most likely not going to support you because it takes a lot of work and a lot of hours go into making something by hand. And so, often, you’re going to have a very, very small market for handmade, and you’re going to have to find another source of income. And what has supported me, what helped me transition out of human resources consulting was teaching. I have never wanted to sell hand printed fabric on its own because the amount of time that goes into that would require me to charge $200+ dollars a yard, or a meter. Um, it’s just not feasible for most people, but I can teach you how to print your own fabric. And I would much rather do that because it’s not a ton of physical labor on my part. And it also allows me to keep printing and keep innovating without having to do production printing.

So teaching was really key for me, um, and now it’s licensing. And actually the printing, you know, the printing part is the smallest part of my revenue now, but that’s also fine because I have other things supporting it. And my print making, in turn, contributes so much to all these other streams of revenue that I have going on.

But yeah, I caution most people. I mean, I have a friend, and we joke that we should have a podcast called “Why You Can’t Do That” or “Why You Shouldn’t Do It.”. And it’s pretty much us giving advice to other aspiring artists, telling them like, yeah, so don’t quit your job. Yeah, so don’t go down this path because I think reality, like, if you’ve got a hobby and you love it that maybe, maybe the reward of that hobby is the joy and the love, rather than anything financial. And maybe in order to keep the joy and the love, it needs to be divorced from a revenue stream. 

Caroline: Yeah, that’s a really great point. And the business aspect of it. It’s definitely not for everyone, not for the faint of heart. It can be so challenging and draining and financially draining, too. So I completely agree with you that it’s not something to enter into lightly. 

Jen: It’s also, I think, something people don’t really want to hear because I mean, I get it. I had, I’ve had many jobs that I’ve been frustrated by, and I’ve daydreamed about what else I could do.

And I, you know, at one point I wanted to own a, an ice cream shop, which was a bad idea because I, I don’t love customer service, and I don’t love retail, like, in, in the way that it needs to be loved in order to, to do something well. And I had daydreams, and in reality, what I needed to do was develop a hobby that I loved, that I had outside of work.

Maybe it was also a sign that, maybe I needed to switch jobs. Like, there were all these other things that were going on, that this dream of quitting it all to focus on this hobby, and I, I have a lot of other hobbies, but that dream was really just my mind’s way of telling me, Hey, something’s going on here, and you’re unhappy with something. And you’re looking at what you think is the easiest fix. It’s most likely the hardest fix. 

Helen: Yeah, that’s so true. I have that tendency as well. And I also sometimes find myself thinking about starting a new creative passion and then immediately jumping because I am a business person and I do have a business to the idea of monetizing that thing before I even try it which is insane, but that’s where my brain goes. And I’ve talked to other people that happens to them too, and they don’t even, you know, just  try the act of block printing before they start thinking about selling the prints. 

Jen: Oh, gosh, and I get lots of email inquiries from people asking me, like, telling me, like, I really have this idea. I want to do a textile business, but I don’t really have a background in it. I don’t know where to start. And I was like, well, maybe you just start by starting, and don’t think about it as a business. 

Caroline: Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s so true. And that sort of leads into another question that I wanted to ask you cause you were talking about daydreaming, and I’ve been listening to some other podcast interviews recently that you had done over the years. And it seems like over the course of your career, you’ve worked on so many interesting projects. You did those creative challenges. You wrote a book. You have this line of fabric with Cotton and Steel which we didn’t even have the chance to chat about today. You have so much going on and so many interesting things going on, and it seems like you, kind of, have a knack for setting your sights on a goal and achieving it.

Like, in one of these podcasts you were saying, well, I hope to have, you know, have my fabrics licensed one day or my designs licensed one day, and now you do. So, do you have any tips for people out there who have these, kind of, bigger dreams but are not really sure where to start? 

Jen: Well, I always have these goals that I put out there, and then I don’t actually do. I don’t sit down and do a plan and figure out how to get there. This is a story of my life, right? Like there are certain things I can plan and say, okay, I can, I’ll get to this point. But I think when you’re an entrepreneur and when you’re a creative person, a lot of times the big goals that you have, there’s no clear path to them.

So you just have to put out, this is my California woo-woo-ness, but you got to put it out there that this is what I want. And then you just need to keep doing the work, um, and trust that at some point it’s going to happen. But the really key important thing is to keep doing the work. Because the more you do the work, the closer you are going to get to those goals, whether you know it or not. For example, and I’ll just bring it back to the Cotton and Steel line. That wasn’t anything I sought. I just knew that I wanted to have a licensed fabric collection at some point. I’d followed them for a while, and I had always wanted to work with them, but I never actually got it together to send a portfolio or even to do an inquiry. And it turns out they don’t take the original five.

They, they don’t take inquiries. You know, they, they look for artists they want to work with. And last year, as I was wrapping up my final book edits, I got an email from Melody Miller, who was the founder of Cotton and Steel who said, would you, do you know who we are? This is who we are. Would you be interested in working on a small fabric collection for us?

And I was like, Yeah. I’ve only been working towards this for five years but not actually following a very specific path to get there. But this is exactly what I wanted, and it, kind of, just showed up. But at the same time, it didn’t really because I’ve been putting my work out there on a really consistent basis for a very long time.

Caroline: Oh, that’s great. I’m glad that you did that line with Cotton and Steel. It is so beautiful. And I encourage our listeners to go check it out cause we didn’t get a chance to talk about it today. Same thing with your book. It is such a great book. I hope that our listeners will go and check it out. There is so much great information in there. 

Helen: Jen, thank you so much for coming on the show to chat with us. Where can our listeners find you online? 

Jen: My website, the site is just jenhewett.com, and it’s H-E-W-E-T-T. I’m not the actress, but people misspelL my last name all the time. And I’m also on Instagram, same @jenhewett. I’m on Instagram a lot more than probably Twitter or Facebook. So you can always find me, you can always find me on the Instagrams. 

Helen: Very adorable dog, I might add. 

Yes, and he didn’t 

Jen: participate in today’s interview. He’s usuall, um, kind of, vocal at this hour. So I guess his birthday party celebration last night wore him out. 

Helen: Happy birthday, Gus. 

Caroline: Oh, well, thank you so much again. We had so much fun chatting with you.

Jen: Thank you so much for having me. 

Helen: Buh-bye.  

Caroline: For this Love to Sew favorite, we’ll be back in September with our new season. And in the meantime, you can find me Caroline at blackbirdfabrics.com and Helen at helensclosetpatterns.com and our Love to Sew swag shop at lovetosewshop.com. 

Helen: We’re recording in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, and you can get in touch with us and get links for everything we talked about in this episode at lovetosewpodcast.com. Just search for the episode title.

Caroline: And of course, if you want to join our Patreon fam, now is a great time to start. For just $5 U.S. per month, you’ll get access to our monthly bonus episode. And $10 U.S. per month will get you a 15% off discount code for Blackbird Fabrics, Helen’s Closet, and our Love to Sew swag shop, plus a bonus mini-sode. Go to patreon.com/lovetosew for more info. 

Helen: Thanks to our amazing podcast team. And thank you all so much for listening. We’ll talk to you soon. 

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