On today’s episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast, we’re talking about building an audience as a sewing blogger with my guest Alexis Bailey.
Alexis is a DIY sewing blogger, sewist, and recently handsewist. She is passionate about sustainability, intentional making, and natural fibers. Entering the online sewing scene in 2017, Alexis has built a truly impressive audience in a short time and created a blossoming business out of her passion as well.
This episode is sponsored by Makerist.
Your new favorite online craft destination and Europe’s largest online pattern marketplace.
We begin this interview by talking about Alexis’s upbringing and how she learned to sew when she was a young teenager. We also talk about how she developed her sense of style and her interest in fashion.
Alexis explains what motivated her to begin posting her handmade clothing on Instagram and how her looks, and her photography developed over time. Today, she partners with her husband, Matt, on photoshoots, and together they have a system down for capturing an overall feeling as well as the details needed to show each piece.
These hand sewing tools are sold as part of Thimble and Snip, Alexis’s kit business.
We also talk about how collaborations with various sewing companies have really helped to accelerate Alexis’s sewing career, both in terms of gaining confidence as well as forging important friendships and gaining access to new audiences.
More recently, Alexis launched a kit business selling everything needed to hand sew clothing. This is a unique approach and not one taken by many other players in the market right now. Alexis explains how to came to feel that hand sewing clothes could be a satisfying and important part of her sewing life, and something others would enjoy as well.
In this conversation we reference:
- MimiG pencil skirt video
- Wool & the Gang kits
- Bernadette Banner historical sewing on YouTube
- Ogden Cami
- Free-Range Slacks
- Strata Top
- A Happy Stitch
And, of course, I ask Alexis to recommend great stuff she’s enjoying right now. Alexis recommends:
- Her a refurbished Brother SE 625
- Visible Mending by Arounna Khounnoraj
- sewing her stash
Keep up with Alexis on her Instagram account on her blog to see what she’s up to.