Welcome!!

Welcome to the Nikolette Blog!
I often find myself wanting to blab on about sewing and making bags but honestly, not everyone within earshot is interested. Thus, I introduce to you the Nikolette Blog, a place for me to wax on about fabric, sewing machines, and industrial thread.
For my first post I thought I'd cheat a bit and re-post something I wrote a few weeks ago. Its a good intro to what I would like the blog to be, so enjoy!

As most everyone knows, I spend about 98% of my waking life either behind the sewing machine or thinking about being there.
I have been sewing bags, if you can believe it, since my junior year in high school when I made an awful over sized sling bag by hand. I loved that thing though, and loved telling people I made it.

Here I am with that bag. Not the best picture, but you get the idea. This had to be 1997ish.

Senior year I ventured into clothing. I turned a junky pair of jeans into the heaviest most cumbersome skirt that I again, wore to death.
I started experimenting buying fabric and taking clothes apart to see how they were made. My senior year was a hit or miss fashion show of hand sewn duds.

Me with my siblings; I was wearing a poor excuse for a skirt that I made out of cheap pink fabric. I even sewed a blue butterfly onto the bottom of it.

A few years passed, I ignored the needle and thread until 2006 when I got all those upholstery samples from my job at a furniture store.
I made a few simple bags that my mother's friends were kind enough to act interested in and take a few off my hands. They were little guys made of really nice fabrics and of found things like random buttons and clothing straps. Straps baffled me for a very long time. Its only been in the last year or two that I believed I have mastered the purse strap.

A few of my first handbag attempts. Not the prettiest things (they were actually alot more wonky than they appear) but they were good practice.

Then came curtains. A word to the wise: never do custom curtains for anyone. Ever.
My first curtain job was a HUGE one and was kind of forced on me. I was working as a decorator at a furniture store and the owner and other employees wanted to re do the store, make it feel less like the strip mall that it was. And curtains were the answer. 75 feet of curtains.
So, I ordered the fabric and brought it to the gentleman my boss had selected to sew the draperies. I gave him the drawing and the measurements and was on my way. All smiles!
A week or two later we found out he hadn't even started the job AND that he wanted to double what he originally quoted for the labor. That's where the dumping came in. Right on my head.
"Courtney, you can sew, why don't you do the curtains?"
I ended up negotiating one or two days a week that I would stay home (on the clock) and sew. I was using a borrowed sewing machine and was in way over my head. I had no idea how to work that thing!
After hours online reading about sewing machines and a few phone calls to my master seamstress friend, Jamie, I finally got to where I could at least get through a zig zag stitch. Changing the stitch on my machine was more than I could handle, so zig zag it was!
The problem with curtains is that they are big. Who has room to lay all that fabric out and cut it and make sure its all straight?
I took to frequently mopping the kitchen floor and working there.
People saw the curtains in the store and that's when the jobs came flooding in. More than I could handle. And people were picky and indecisive at the same time.
By the end of 2007, I vowed to only sew curtains for myself.

A massive curtain job I did for a sweet family in Prarieville, LA. This was a double rod installation and all four panels were backed in blackout lining. So those plus the swag at the top... it was very heavy. I had to make the rod system out of conduit and wood because it was so involved and everything had hinges in the middle so that I could fold it up and put it in my car.

One thing curtain making did for me was really familiarize me with using a sewing machine. It opened up a whole new world of bag making for me. I got some leather and some more upholstery samples from work and came up with a design that I sold quite a bit of after opening my Nikolette shop on Etsy.

My first real bag design. These were sewn on a PFAFF and were all a little quirky - I was still learning pattern making.

I have since sewn on a cheap Singer from Target, an antique Singer that has been in my family a very long time, and a 70s model Kenmore that was my grandmother's. My sewing studios have always been in the kitchen, my bedroom, or a spare bedroom and I have never had adequate sewing space, table space or storage space.
But since the move up to Portland all that has made a change for the better. We have a full basement here and the original plan was Dan and I would half it. I would use my half for sewing and he would use his for maybe hockey gear or workout equipment. But we ended up joining a gym and we had enough storage space for Dan's hockey gear so that left the whole basement to my hand. I also found a machine I had been drooling over on Craigslist and miraculously had the cash for it. I am now sewing on a Juki industrial machine and I haven't looked back. I can now use stronger threads, use better materials for my bags and make them much quicker, and way neater.

Here is the sewing area. I love the white on the unfinished walls, makes it nice and bright and less like a basement. I also have a cutting area with a big table for laying out fabrics and a computer for editing pictures of bags. Need a nice big screen for that.

I just got this cabinet to house all of my inventory safely away from little paws. Next on the list is a unit with big wide drawers to keep all of my fabric. I am storing it in boxes right now!

So, hopefully I am on my way toward making a living sewing bags for people. After several months of planning, designing, tweaking and tweaking some more, I finally have my line pretty much ready to go.

The real meat and potatoes of the line: from top - The Lucy Clutch, named after the family dog growing up. The Kimball Satchel, named after a road I lived on. And The Margot Tote, named after my dog, Margot Mango. And finally, me with a Margot Tote. Big difference from the bag in '97, huh?

This design all started when a friend of mine wanted a diaper bag to match her nursery. I listed photos of it on Etsy and got a huge response, so I thought I'd tweak it and make it work for a few different bags and ride the wave. These have been doing well and I hope they will keep doing better the more I can make and list.
So that is a not so brief history of my life with the needle and thread. Promises of more interesting Portland related posts to come!