It’s always been in me! I see things in a store and almost immediately go “ohh, I can make that!” I pull out my doodle pad, start sketching and come up with a pattern to create said item that I had spotted in the store! I’ve operated like this for years. And there are times that I just sit down on the porch with a cup of coffee and just dream up a whimsical pirate ship or cartoonish robot or giraffe! It’s so fun for me. It’s what I grew up around.
I always thought it was “normal” to go back-to-school shopping at the fabric store and pick out your favorite McCall patterns and bolts of fabric. I always thought it was “normal” to walk into various rooms in the house to find jars of buttons, drawers full of zippers and projects in the midst of being finished! My Mom was wildly creative (although she’d deny that) and she groomed me from a very young age that I can make anything I set my mind to!
She also put an idea in my heart that I can BE anything I want to be! Over the course of the past few years, I’ve been successful and excited to be in the wedding industry! I love the brides, the weddings, the details, the families…practically everything about being a wedding photographer (even the late-night editing sessions and never ending email inbox). But, I’ve always known that there is more to me. That I am MORE than just a photographer. I am an artist.
I AM an artist! I love to work with my sewing machine and dream up wacky ideas or crazy patterns that I think would put a smile on people’s faces! And I’ve always dreamt of these “ideas” and sketches turning into something tangible for people to have in their house. I wanted to make something that brought joy to people faces!
Last year when I met Lara Casey, she reignited this spark that my Mom had put in me years ago. The idea that “I can be anything……just anything” that I want to be. I remember flying home from WPPI and journaling about 20 pages of ideas and thoughts of what I really wanted to be. What were my priorities? And who did I really want to become? I had felt like I was achieving my goals as a photographer, but something was missing. My Mom had put a fire inside me and a passion in my heart to unabashedly create….and I had stopped doing that in every aspect of my life! Yes, I was doing that with weddings and photography…but I wasn’t letting my creativity fly…I wasn’t letting it take hold and let it soar!
Enter this new textile part of Emily Steffen! I am starting out small but I have big plans! Plans to keep joyfully creating, plans to sell patterns and little stuffed toys, plans to keep dreaming about creating various lines of fabric, plans to dream up kids toys that are whimsical and full of joy, and plans to someday have a whole book of patterns that is published and on the shelves at the cute little bookstore in downtown Hudson.
So, check it out. Like I said, I’m starting small and moving forward. For now, you can buy anything and everything on Etsy and eventually this will be expanded (hopefully in the next few weeks) into patterns. So if you are a sewer or a creative person, watch for those patterns so that you can make your very own Emily Steffen creations!
HOORAY for change and HOORAY for stepping out and desiring to live the life I had always dreamed about; full of both photography and textiles! I can’t wait to see where this takes me, what roads this opens and what doors I walk though on this adventure!
A GIANT thank you for Bethany Hway for all of her design work and Emily Ley and Lara Casey for their fabulous talent, advice and dream-cheering-on! These ladies are top notch and one in a million!!! :)
