How-to textile and sewing workshops thriving in Vancouver

Several years ago Vancouver couple Lili Nedved and Henry Sinha decided to leave their respective careers in the electronics and venture capital fields and open a store where they could sew and make crafts, and teach others as well.

"In our former careers we were both super crafty and we just didn't ever find a space where we could really hang out and do our crafts in public," said Nedved, whose store Spool of Thread opened in East Vancouver five years ago.

""We knew people were interested in what we were doing, and instead of making these things, we could also teach people to make their own things and supply beautiful materials and have a lot of fun doing that."

Classes for all levels

Nedved and Sinha are just two of many crafty entrepreneurs in Vancouver who have found a niche at a time when there seems to be a resurgence of interest in making items with one's own two hands.

Their store has sewing machines available to rent by the hour, fabric from around the world for sale, and workshops that run the gamut from three-hour beginner classes to a 12-hour course on making a vintage-style dress.

"We wanted to make sure that from the very beginning if you knew nothing you could walk in here and at the end of three hours you could either make a tote bag or a set of throw pillows," Nedved said.

"The next day people go to work or they go out with their friends and they can say, 'Look at this cool thing that I made'."

They said they strive to make their store a comfortable space for all people to learn new skills and practise their craft.

"We wanted to make sure we created a space that was really open, where everyone felt included," Sinha said.

Textiles workshops

Vancouverite Heather Young, a fashion designer who worked for many years on her own clothing line Dust, also saw the demand for learning crafts.

She founded The Craft Lab, which offers a number of workshops in the textile arts at various locations throughout the city.

Her workshops include quilting, block printing, dyeing with indigo, and a Japanese hand stitching technique.

Young, who has taught fashion at the post-secondary level, said she saw that there weren't many workshops for adults who were crafty and not enrolled in a college or university program.

"There's not a lot of these textile-based workshops around in Vancouver, so I thought there is a market here," she said.

"When I put a workshop together I'm bringing people together who share that passion, and so that's really half of the excitement, being together and exchanging ideas in conversation."

She said it is really exciting to see "the lights go off" when they see the final product after, for example, dyeing fabric.

"You unravel it at the very end of the workshop and this beautiful pattern emerges, and it's so beautiful for them."

Young said the workshops bring strangers together through a shared passion, which is something that watching instructional videos on YouTube doesn't provide.

To hear the full interview listen to the audio labelled: Textile and sewing workshops in Vancouver make for close-knit community