Host (00:05)
you got to get out there. Yeah and experience life and work and opportunities arise if you are an active part of the community. You're gonna meet people.

Sharilyn (00:15)
Well, I think in chatting so far, you've said two really important things. So first of all, I'm also a mother of teenagers. I have a grade 10 and a grade 11 student. And both of them are just at the part where people are starting to ask them, what are you going to do? What are you going to take in college? What are you going to do in university? Neither of them know. So that's really interesting way of looking at things.

you can listen to a story and how people have evolved their career over 20 years or whatever, and just connect all the dots into what their business is. And then, yeah, it's great to see, okay, we're not going point A to point B to point C. It's like all over the map. But also I love how everything you're doing is about creating community, right? And

what you said about getting out and walking around the neighborhood. Like that's definitely how we met. You were out walking around. Yeah, it's such a beautiful way to experience our city. Like I don't drive, so I'm on foot and on my bike all the time. But you're right. there's stories behind all these doors of all these businesses. And it just takes somebody asking how or why for the story to come tumbling out, right?

Host (01:22)
Yeah. And I do find that.

It's a little bit easier so far in my journey to talk to food establishments because you have a reason to go in. You're like, well, I'll have a beverage or I'll have a coffee or I'll try your food. And so it's easier to break that barrier, form that connection. But it's harder a bit to break into non-food establishments. I want to hear your story, but I really want to hear the locksmith story.

But I don't have a I don't need a locksmith But how did you become how did you get into this? Yeah, there's just so many Well, there's a story for every place and like you said every door. Yeah. So with that being said, yeah, are you from Colona?

Sharilyn (01:55)
I think that's your in. I don't know what I need you for.

I'm from Peachland. wow. Yeah, so I grew up in Peachland. But like so much of my family lived here in town. So we'd come from like the forest into town to go grocery shopping or, you know, go to my aunt's house. She lived over by Strathcona Park. it was like some really formative memories for me doing that. And then I went to school here, went to Okanagan.

University back when that's what it was called. Yeah and took the fine arts program and then moved to Vancouver for like 20 years

Host (02:39)
wow.

Can I ask what decade that you lived in Peachland? Yeah.

Sharilyn (02:44)
So

I was born in the 70s and so I lived in Peachland from the 70s until off and on maybe like 2002 when I moved to Vancouver.

Host (02:56)
So you got to see West Bank develop from just beautiful fields of horses and nature to like this mad industrial, yeah.

Sharilyn (03:01)
horses.

It's

pretty wild. Not even just like the industrial aspect, like watching the wine industry change and evolve on the West side and how that's like changed the geography and even like how people operate in West Kelowna. You you've got the wine trail or whatever it's called on Boucherie versus like downtown, which is literally a highway through the middle of

of town. But yeah, I remember when downtown West Colona was a two-way highway and yeah, it was not very big.

Host (03:39)
Yeah, and that was this, or it wasn't a city, it was like the largest unincorporated town in all of North America at one point, right? But that was like the hub, was that one way area. cool. Okay, so you moved to Vancouver.

Sharilyn (03:49)
That's where you went for groceries.

So I should say also, my husband and I met here in Kelowna in art school. He's from Vernon. And I don't want to say that I moved to Vancouver for a boy, but I 100 % did. So we started dating shortly after university. I was working at the Kelowna Art Gallery and didn't have a lot going on. And Mark walked back into my life and.

He was like, I'm working in the animation industry in Vancouver and I'm only here for Christmas break. And we sort of started like a long distance relationship. And I did end up moving to Vancouver because of him. And yeah, we lived in Vancouver for almost 20 years and it was amazing. We had our kids in Vancouver. lived.

Host (04:34)
Can you say Vancouver? mean Vancouver proper? ⁓

Sharilyn (04:36)
Vancouver? Vancouver,

Vancouver. So before we, most recently, before we moved back to Kelowna, we lived in the Woodward's building, which is right downtown. Our kids went to school in Strathcona. Yeah, we were living and working in like a six block radius. We were downtown Vancouver.

Host (04:53)
and then you got to live the walking lifestyle without your car. Yes. Being a part of the community. Gotcha.

Sharilyn (04:59)
Yeah,

so part of why we bought, when we moved back to Kelowna, we bought a house kind of downtown, was we wanted to be able to walk everywhere. So our kids have always been able to walk to school. We like walk and live in our neighborhood and go to all the businesses in our neighborhood. Like this is why we live downtown. Yeah.

Host (05:17)
We have a very strong...

I have a very strong connection to that because I grew up, we had moved to the mission and you just, had to drive everywhere. Yes. Especially back then. There was nothing. Like you drove everywhere and you didn't, or I didn't realize, I didn't realize it because that's, that was my norm. But then when I went to university, no car, you're living on campus and you experienced the walking life, loved it. And then I went overseas and

especially when my husband and I were in Vietnam, you just walked everywhere and you were part of the neighborhood. And we just loved that. We just loved it. So when we came back home, when we decided to purchase our first home,

The big thing for us was like, where can we live in the city that we can walk and try to mimic, not that it would ever come close to the same, but mimic that lifestyle of that community. And we wanted to be able to walk to the Rocket Games. That was actually the defining thing. Why not walk to the Rocket Games? And so yeah, that's why we ended up downtown.

Sharilyn (06:17)
Number one.

So when we moved back eight years ago, the lodges, which is where my business is, it was just, it was still old boat sheds. It was artists. Yeah, it was just like falling down and it was really like an indicative part of like what old Kelowna really was like. And to see that change and evolve over the last like nine years.

Host (06:33)
This is Richter and Clement.

Sharilyn (06:47)
And even all of the North End has really been so amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

Host (06:51)
Yeah, it's such a nice place now to walk around.

Sharilyn (06:54)
Yes,

yeah, I love it. Yeah. Yeah.

Host (06:57)
So what type of jobs did you have when, did you work at all when you were a teenager?

Sharilyn (07:01)
my gosh, I have had like the weirdest trajectory here. So when I was a teenager, I worked at a marina in Peachland for, I don't even know, like maybe 10 years between like high school and university. And I think that's probably where I got a taste for what small business could be like. So my boss who owned the marina was so...

generous and basically let me do whatever I want. So I would like make t-shirts and sell t-shirts. I would make hemp jewelry and sell hemp jewelry. We brought in local sandwiches. I convinced him we needed to like have a candy station. so we turned it into like what could have been a really boring like pit stop for gas into a little hub. He also we rented jet skis and boats and

So I grew up on the lake and it was an interesting sort of dichotomy. was making all this cool stuff to sell, but I was also like pumping gas and going out at night after work and like wakeboarding until it got too dark. So it was during that time I was also in art school. So it was, I was very much leaving, leading like two different lives. Like this life, I don't know what you even call it was like super outdoorsy and

Host (08:10)
Bye.

Sharilyn (08:14)
you know, focused on being out on the lake and then also being at home and at school making amazing things. So after university, I did go to work at the art gallery for brief time here in Kelowna, which was really, it was great. It was very like this, when you graduate from art school, there's this sort of like theory that you need a serious art job. So I kind of considered that was my step into like the world of serious art.

And it was fine. It wasn't necessarily for me, but it was fine. And that was during the time that I met my husband again and moved to Vancouver. And so when I moved to Vancouver, I ended up working for Opus Art Supplies for the bulk of the time we were in Vancouver. Off and on, because we did have two kids and I took maternity leave, but I did just about every single job for Opus that you could think of. Everything from like the framing department.

to training people, product knowledge, to managing the downtown Gastown location. So that's what I was doing before we moved back to Kelowna.

Host (09:16)
Becoming a manager of a place where you scheduling shifts and hiring and dealing with all of the personnel

Sharilyn (09:23)
Yeah, it was really

interesting. Like I think between my original experience working for a very small family business at the Marina, Opus is probably the place where I really got my sort of business. Like I don't have any business background aside from working for small businesses. So working for Opus was where, yeah, I learned how to like schedule everybody, know, setting goals like sales goals, loss prevention. ⁓

I got to do a little bit of everything, but I think the real thing that I learned there was learning how to pinpoint what others did really well and help them shine. So, for example, I worked with one, well, I worked with lot of amazing people, but one gal on my team was just such an amazing artist who had an eye for merchandising.

And so just like letting her fly at it. What is it? like the displays. So she did all the displays. She did the windows. And like she just made everything look really good in the store and like made the decision where things would go. So recognizing that that was what she was really good at and just sort of giving her free rein. That was kind of helping her shine in that area. That's really what I learned from working at Opus. Yeah.

Host (10:11)
What does that mean?

out of all the people that I've.

podcast so far, very, very few have actually had business school education. Great to hear. And the one person that did, it didn't even really apply to running your own business. Like the business education wasn't like running your own small business, which is interesting, And most people's knowledge is gained through working all these little jobs here and there and taking a piece of knowledge with each one and then realizing, hey, like I can, having the

to do it yourself. Yeah.

Sharilyn (11:03)
Well, that's good to hear because I have like no business experience.

Host (11:07)
There's probably people cringing out there at this, but that's life, know? you've moved back to Kelowna, you've moved downtown. Was your husband still in the animation industry?

Sharilyn (11:17)
Yeah, worked in animation up until the writer's strike about two years ago. he's had to move on to other things, but he was working here in Kelowna and I came to work at the Kelowna Opus Store. They're all over BC, so I was able to transfer to the store here in Kelowna. what I loved about working here was I really...

for the first time ever dipped my toe into what it felt like to be truly part of an artist community. So in Vancouver, every artist is kind of out for themselves, but here in Kelowna, we have a really unique artist community, whereas everybody is so supportive of each other. Everybody goes to each other's events, their art openings, know, posts and talks about them on Instagram, like each other. And so,

dipping into that and becoming immersed, like fully immersed. I was doing all of the visiting artists demos and like any outreach within the store. So we'd go to like the Vernon Artists Guild and show them different types of paint, that sort of thing. So I did all of that kind of outreach. But yeah, I really fully just became super immersed in the amazingly talented pool of artists we have here in Kelowna.

And then I loved that job and then COVID happened and there was no outreaching. Like nobody was coming to the store. I was laid off and I was home with my kids. old your kids at this point? my gosh, they were in grade four and grade five when the world kind of shut down. So I was home with them on the struggle bus trying to help them.

Host (12:35)
I'm

It's tough,

Sharilyn (12:46)
do math. don't know if you know this, but kids don't carry the one anymore. they don't. Math has changed.

Host (12:51)
change.

A bit of a, well I was a teacher so I have lots of my own opinion about all this.

Sharilyn (12:53)
So.

So there's a whole group of kids now that have learned how to carry the wine because their parents didn't know how to teach them the new math. Anyhow, so we were doing that. But meanwhile, I also like I've always been making things. like going back to like, my art school roots, I have continued to sew and I knit we'd have like our art cart out.

much like yourself here, we had kind of an open door policy with art supplies. And as long as you weren't using my watercolors, you could use whatever you wanted out of the art studio. So we were doing a lot of that during COVID. And I decided to bring in for my own sewing purposes, a couple of bolts of linen from an amazing company from the UK called Merchant and Mills. And they're really high quality, sustainable.

linens and well, they were just out there in the sewing community. Like they'd been so selling patterns and beautiful fabrics. And I bought their patterns and use their products before. So I thought I'm to buy a whole bolt of linen. And I bought a couple of bolts, like 10 meter rolls of linen. So a lot of linen in bulk. And then my friends were all like, well, where did you get this? And can I buy some? And then I was like, that's interesting because

Host (13:49)
you find out about them?

Sharilyn (14:14)
The other thing about Kelowna is an absolutely no shade on fabric land, they didn't have the kind of quality products that people were looking for. So when I brought in this linen, it was really kind of mind blowing to some of the sewers that were here in town. And so I started a website and I was just selling online out of my basement studio and started bringing in

a little things that I really loved. a friend of mine is a potter, so I brought in her mugs. Another friend is a weaver, so I brought in some of her weavings and I put them up online and they just sold. And I was like, okay, that's interesting. you know, time went on and my husband was like, so are you gonna go back to work now?

Or should we try this? And so Heirloom Bohemia was kind of born. We went for it and had a really major crash course in building a business. was something neither of us had done before. We rented a space. I'd never ever rented like a retail location before. It had three walls. It was

in the lodges, it was just being built. I think Marmalade Cat was there, had just gone in. And the bike shop and the candle store were just in the process of opening when I signed my lease. And yeah, so I found out how to hire a builder and what all the things meant and.

that their timeline or my timeline meant nothing in the grand scheme of building things. Yeah, it was really like an intense time, but we got her done.

Host (15:45)
How did you come up with your

Sharilyn (15:47)
Great question.

Thank you. So definitely my friends helped me. were sitting around drinking wine one night as one does. And I was like really like obsessing about this. Like I'm an Aquarian. So everything's got to be like perfect and interesting but different than everything. So I was obsessing over what to call the business. And I was like, I really want it to be like.

have like a heirloom feeling to it. And my one friend was like, well, that's it. That's what you call your business heirloom. And then I was like, but like, also want it to be really bohemian and like arty and like different. And they're like, that's literally your name. So that's how it came to be. And I did, I had another girlfriend at the time who was also working with me on the business. And she and I just like kind of looked at each other and we're like, yeah, that's totally it.

Host (16:28)
⁓ wow!

Sharilyn (16:38)
she did go off and actually went back to school to become a C. E. A. And has on a totally different path, which is super happy for her. And I continued ahead with heirloom Bohemia and yeah.

Host (16:51)
That's amazing. So how long have you been open for now?

Sharilyn (16:54)
Yeah, so

I've been open in my brick and mortar location for three years now. And I had the website for about a year and a half before we made the decision to open a shop. so part of why I wanted to go into a brick and mortar location is having worked for Opus, I saw the importance of creating community and creating a creative place for people to go. People like to go.

do things. So a huge part of my very, very loose business plan was I wanted to teach classes. I'm a firm believer that everybody can do something given the right tools. So you can be creative. You can sew. You can make cool things. You just have to be given the right tools and maybe the permission to just like mess up a little bit. And that's okay. You need to be supported.

and given the go ahead to just play. So that was really what I wanted to do was create a space for people to play. It didn't exist in Kelowna. There are art studios here, but they're not places that you can go and like spend an hour or two, right? So living in Vancouver, we'd seen such amazing places as like Collage Collage, they're on Main Street. Erin had done such an amazing job of creating this beautiful kids art studio.

that my kids had the good fortune to attend several, like for years until we moved home. And it was a place you could drop in for an hour and make crafts. So I really wanted that kind of an idea to exist here in Kelowna for both kids and adults. And I think after three years, we're getting there. That's cool. Yeah.

Host (18:27)
Yeah, your place has a very unique feel to it when you walk in. the fabrics you have are func- func is not the right word.

Sharilyn (18:36)
I

love it. I love the word funky.

Host (18:39)
they're nice. They're really nice. Yeah.

Sharilyn (18:42)
So along with providing a space to be creative as a part of my business plan, the other sort of touchstone for me was it needed to be sustainable. So literally everything that I do or I try and do things as sustainable as possible in that shop, everything's got a sustainability aspect to it. So fabrics, which are gorgeous, all are very, very special. So a lot of the printed fabrics are made in Japan and they're all

printed with like a non-plastic salt ink, going back to the Merchant and Mills fabric, their fabrics are like the highest quality that we can possibly get in the world. They're ecotext certified, they're got certified. You can take, if you've made a dress or a shirt out of Merchant and Mills fabric and you've used cotton thread, and at the end of that garment's life, you can take it and you can compost it. And it will have no like repercussions on the earth.

Yeah, their stuff's amazing. So like that, that is why the fabric that I'm carrying is so special is because it truly is beautifully, sustainably made. I think also we have to realize not all fabrics are created equally. So when we look at fabric made around the world, some places are more problematic than others in terms of how they're being made, what like what

kind of dies and what kind of inks they're being printed with. And when we know where something comes from, what's gone into it, we can sort of feel like we're contributing a bit to the solution of being anti-fast fashion. I don't know if that's a term you're familiar with, but it's something that really like is.

so important to me to get the message out about fast fashion and how it is absolutely ruining the planet. all these ideas of sustainability, giving people tools, passing on these heirloom skills that are being lost, to me, this is all part of the solution that's going to help us combat fast fashion and consumerism. I mean, I'm not.

I'm just taking on the big, tackling the big problems here, no big deal.

Host (20:50)
I

Sharilyn (20:52)
get people coming in every single day. I'd like to learn how to sew. I would love to learn how to have my pants. I would. My grandma sewed or my mom sewed, but I wasn't interested. And now I don't know how. And it's like just bridging that gap for people. Like I said, this is an heirloom skill. We wear clothes every single day and every day. It's a decision on how we want to like present ourselves and we can.

do that in a sustainable manner or a not so sustainable manner. So it's just helping people kind of bridge that gap and get to where they want to be in terms of not only slow fashion, handmade fashion, but also creating things that are interesting and fun to wear. You know what I mean?

Host (21:35)
Another, I have two thoughts that come to mind is that oh my goodness my mom would love to meet you. She's very much into

Like she sews and she does, makes, she's a make, she's like you, like she's a maker. she's taught me how to like do your own canning and this and that. And when I think of cooking, passing down the family recipes and all that. so every year she makes pajamas for everybody in the family for Christmas. it's been passed on. But I...

She tried to get me into sewing but I was never really interested in it. So I feel like a lost generation, even though I'm still young, I could still learn but I'm just not that interested because whenever I need my ... I have short legs, so whenever I need my pants hemmed, I take them to my mom. And when my kids get holes in their knees, I take it to my mom. So I've never ... It's one of those things, like I've never developed the skill myself because I've always gone to my mom.

But interestingly enough, my children are interested in learning how to sew. So grandma's been teaching the girls how to sew. yeah, it skipped my generation. But I think it's neat that the girls might carry this.

Sharilyn (22:42)
Well, I think it's so interesting. So I think that I'm a little bit older than you. But when I was in high school, sewing was really considered I don't want to say anti-feminist, but it was like, nobody's got time for that. It's very old fashioned. Why would I want to do that? And it, you know, when you look at even in high schools today, like sewing and textiles, foods and nutrition, the trades often get sort of

sidelined, but in particular foods and nutrition and sewing get sidelined a little bit. They're being cut from a lot of schools around Canada. Luckily not here in Kelowna yet, but I think that it is both of those things are a traditional form of women's work and I think that women have been convinced we don't need those skills.

We do. Everybody needs those skills. Women, men, everybody needs those skills. But it also, sorry, I'm not explaining myself very well. I think that we were convinced we don't need those skills because it's not a modern way of living. And to go out and to buy something pre-made that somebody else has still sewn for us, that is a more modern way. Our time can be better used doing other things.

When we take back the knowledge of how to make things for ourselves, whether it's again, knitting, cooking, gardening, growing our own food, we're taking back that knowledge and we've got then the power to live the kind of life we wanna live. So like for me, being different and creative,

and living an interesting life is super important. But I also don't want to wear what everybody else is wearing. I kind of like have my own unique little style, I think. I want to wear things that are sustainable, going back to the sustainability slant. And I also just don't want to give my money to big corporations, like when it boils down to it. I don't want somebody else in the fashion world.

fashion industry telling me how I should look. Do you know what I mean? And I think when we make our own clothes, much like when we're gardening, we take back that power and we get to say, actually, this is who I am as an individual, whatever that might be, in whatever fabric and whatever colors and whatever style you want, this is me as an individual.

Host (24:58)
Yeah, yeah, that's cool. I definitely relate with that. I think we grew like I was born mid 80s and we grew up in a time where I really relate to that where you almost had to be Not it's not anti-feminine but but there was a

You know, and I'm almost ashamed and embarrassed to say this, but like I grew up thinking that being a stay-at-home mom was like a terrible thing. Like there was a negative. I understand, I definitely understand the importance of being an independent woman. I like being, whether you're going to get educated or whatever it is, that you have the ability to stand on your own two feet. ⁓

Sharilyn (25:24)
We were too.

Absolutely.

Host (25:40)
so

that you're not in a relationship where you're depending on somebody you can't get out if that relationship turns toxic. Especially having two young girls. I truly, truly understand the importance of raising them so that they can be independent. However, now that the test of time has shown that my relationship that I have with my husband is he's just the most amazing

He's amazing. He's an absolutely amazing husband, amazing dad. Oh, he's just a great guy. And there's so much trust and respect and love in this relationship that now, since going on maternity leave and stepping away from my profession that I've lived my whole life to get, that being vulnerable to that, that now I'm in a position where

I have a lot of respect if you can have a parent whether a mom or a dad If you can be in a situation where a parent can be at home and be a homemaker is such a privilege now And now you have the time to be there Take your kids to school and pick them up and be there for them and you have the time to be passing on all of these skills or what some of us need to learn some skills, but you know

I understand the value of that now. I'm like, oh, it's an interesting dichotomy between, it's like, they're almost completely different. Right? You have an independent work and work and work and lady. And if, and if you are like, kudos to you rock on, but it doesn't leave a lot of time for these trades that are, or these skill sets, these heirlooms that are being forgotten about and not passed down.

Sharilyn (27:14)
I think the fun thing for me having lived most of my adult life in say, we'll call it like the art industry is I have always surrounded myself with really amazing supportive people. I never felt like my feminist points of view were ever.

like shaken or undercut, they were always very well supported, whether I was working full time or whether I was a stay at home mom. And I think being able to blend whatever your passion is into your life. So my passion happens to be sewing, which is, you know, a bit of an old fashioned skill that is kind of, people think.

is disappearing. It's not. We have an amazing sewing community here in Kelowna. But being able to take whatever your passion is and integrate it into your life, right? And what that looks like, like if you're making, like creating time to be creative or to hike or to make music or to play soccer, like whatever that you choose to be passionate about, you blend it into your life regardless of whether you're working, whether you're a stay at home mom.

Host (28:19)
Yeah,

that's a point.

Sharilyn (28:20)
Sorry, I should say, clarify, working outside of the house. Because let me tell you, stay at home moms, or stay at home parents in general, that is a hard job.

Host (28:28)
Yeah, it is, yeah.

Sharilyn (28:30)
Yeah. So I don't know, I think it's just like finding time to do what you're passionate about, whatever it is, in between the cracks. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I'm really fortunate that my life has given me the opportunity to be creative in all aspects of my life. So I've been able to creatively parent. My husband is creative. So we have always had

a lot of like we go to art galleries or we used to like draw together as a family. You know, like we really incorporate the arts into our everyday life. That's what's important to us. And now being able to teach people how to make cool stuff as my job is amazing. And I do like circling back, I really do feel like everybody can sew given the right tools, you know? We just maybe haven't allowed ourselves

to have the time to learn those skills or maybe not had somebody in our lives to show us those skills.

Host (29:22)
so so much of everything we're interested in usually stems because there's some usually there's somebody in our life that has shared their passion with you. although now with the internet it's a lot easier too.

Sharilyn (29:34)
Well, and that, OK, so I mentioned that I knit. I love to knit. It's something I do to unwind. My grandma taught me how to knit when I was really young. But I didn't knit past being eight and being like, I want to learn how to knit. I learned how to knit, and then I never knit again. So the internet actually has been my best friend in dipping my toe into the world of knitting and yarn. Yeah.

Host (29:58)
My uh, my mom gave me this book about how was it? I think there was like a thousand different knit stitches in it and day and age

to do these new stitches, they had to be spoken out or written out to understand the stitch. And I would read, it's like a code, I would read it. I have absolutely no idea what this is. It's all so complicated. You take that stitch and you put it in YouTube and then you can see it and go, oh, that's all it is.

Sharilyn (30:29)
So that's exactly what I do at the store, but with sewing. People, we all learn differently. And being able to have somebody physically show you how to hold your fabric, how to hold your scissors, how to measure. These are all the skills that I'm teaching people at the studio. Yeah.

Host (30:46)
How did you get to acquire all those sewing machines? You got a lot of machines. do. I know the cost of those machines because every time my mom sprains when she goes to fix it or get a new one, I'm like,

Sharilyn (30:51)
So English.

I think

every business has, you know, kind of their operating costs and I can store my sewing machines and the upkeep of them and operating costs. That said, are, and I are taking a, my husband and I are taking a sewing machine repair workshop. So we'll be able to like kind of take care of our own machines. So there's like one guy in all of Kelowna that does it. It's truly a lost art.

Host (31:18)
Yuck.

Sharilyn (31:23)
So I don't know what's going to happen when he no longer does. But yeah, so the sewing machines, I am still using my sewing machine that I got when I was 18. So that's in use in the shop. A friend of mine gave me a machine. So that's in use in the shop. I've bought a few. My dad actually just was like recently.

Host (31:25)
He might have a second business going on.

Sharilyn (31:44)
He's so funny. He's like, yeah, I see you're getting busier. Do you need an extra sewing machine? I'm like, actually, I do. And he went and bought me one, which was so nice. So yeah, it's just kind of grown really organically. didn't want to like, and I did only start out with three sewing machines, and now we're at six, which has been great. I didn't want to, when we first opened, we were very, very like bare bones.

I didn't have a lot of fabric. basically just had like me and three sewing machines. And that's how we started. I started teaching and ⁓ we've grown to now six sewing machines and walls full of fabric. I've got right now, so I do afterschool sewing classes for kids from four o'clock till five. And I've got 20 kids. So.

five each day, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And then I teach adults in the evenings. And then also we're an open sewing studio during the day. So I have folks dropping in, booking time to work on their projects. And I've got probably, I want to say about 20 regulars. And then just more and more people messaging me every day saying, I heard you teach classes. I really want to learn how to sew. I think people are just getting

really tired of the same old sort of boring, really poorly made garments that are available at market right now. And I think people want to take that into their own hands and they want to make their own gorgeous linen outfits. you know, they want to learn how to sew, which is great.

Host (33:10)
The other thing that I was thinking of when you were talking about fast fashion is the concept that you have to have like a new outfit for every day of the week, think, bizarre. My closet, A, I have like the same shirts from like 15 years ago, like I rarely shop and I just, and because it's older material, don't

Sharilyn (33:20)
⁓ So I'm glad you brought that.

Host (33:31)
They don't break down like the new ones do. last. But even my daughter, like pants, jeans, you can wear them. You don't have to wash them every time. just wear them. they start to smell, then we'll wash them. And you can wear the same jeans multiple days in a row. Absolutely. It is quite OK to wear the same pants every day in the world. know, like, and, but you look.

And all these kids there are people they wear different clothes every single day of the week sometimes like once a month they'll wear a shirt. Yeah, it's interesting. So

Sharilyn (34:02)
That's a really good point you brought up. Our level of consumption right now is, a society is out of control. So there's some statistics. There's so many statistics. But the biggest one to me is the average person gets rid of 80 pounds of clothes or of textiles. So it could be clothes. could be sheets, whatever. So the average person gets rid of 80 pounds of textiles a year. That's a lot. A year.

Host (34:29)
even visualize that. Right? Yeah.

Sharilyn (34:32)
So I think one of the things that we have to remember when you get rid of things, you take things to the thrift store. doesn't mean it's going to be reused or repurposed. It's likely going to end up a couple of places. A few items will get resold at the thrift store that you've donated it to. The majority of items will get bailed up, like put into giant square bales and shipped overseas to places like Ghana, where they'll be

put into their second hand market, clothing market, which is a travesty all on its own because it's ruined their own heritage textile practices. And then a third portion of those textiles that we get rid of are just incinerated or thrown in the garbage. So there is no way with our garments or our textiles. when we, it is absolutely, it's the same thing.

Host (35:16)
That's like plastic bags.

Sharilyn (35:20)
We're going to circle back to plastic in a minute. I've got a lot to say.

Host (35:23)
⁓ I love learning about stuff. This is fascinating.

Sharilyn (35:27)
So when we make our own clothes, statistics actually show that we are more likely to care for them in a different way. And they're more likely to stay in your closet longer.

Host (35:38)
Absolutely, the loving care you put into it.

Sharilyn (35:41)
If it takes me a year to knit a sweater or like two or three months to quilt a jacket, I'm not going to get rid of it like in the same year. I've got things in my closet that are like 20 years old, much like yourself, right? things last, especially when you're using like really nice quality fabrics. So the other thing I said I wanted to circle back to plastic. When you go shopping right now and you start to

notice, like when you know what you're looking for, you'll start to notice that fabric isn't what it used to be, like you just said, with your old shirts. Fabric is mostly made out of plastic now. So it's polyester, vegan leather, plastic.

Host (36:19)
Is that like pleather? Yeah.

Sharilyn (36:20)
plastic, stretch, like any yoga wear, it's all plastic. And when you start to look at a shop and you're like, this has spandex in it. This is like stretch. This t-shirt has viscous, which is another name of manmade fiber. You start to realize everything hanging.

on these shelves or on these racks in stores, it's all plastic. These are all stores full of plastic, right? Which doesn't leave just like a plastic bag. It doesn't go away.

right? It's mind blowing.

Host (36:51)
my yeah

i've never actually sat down and visualized or thought about that and everything we have is stretchy because it's comfy now yeah yeah it is

Sharilyn (36:59)
whole mall full of plastic. Disturbing thought, isn't it?

Yeah, so like when you start being intentional in your purchases and you're purchasing like 100 % cotton, 100 % linen, 100 % wool, when we're looking at those tags and like purchasing either store, like you can still buy ready to wear that is high quality. Or if you're making your own and you purchase those 100 % linen, cotton,

well, they're going to last way longer for starters. But also when you're done with them, either they can be repurposed or they're just going to be biodegradable. Yeah. Yeah.

Host (37:43)
Yeah.

When you say quality, you've said quality a lot. What are the varying degrees of, what does that mean? Yeah, great question. ⁓

Sharilyn (37:53)
Yeah,

so quality in terms of textiles would refer to their fiber content. So again, I use some terminology like polyester, viscose, modell. Those fibers, which are essentially all plastic, even bamboo, some bamboo fabrics. There's still plastic. Yeah. Yeah, knit bamboo.

Host (38:13)
Last.

Sharilyn (38:16)
Yeah. So to get these fibers, so bamboo, Modell, and viscose are all essentially made from plant fibers. But industry takes those plant fibers and melts them in chemicals until they become thread or fiber. So that means they go through a process of changing from being a natural fiber into being now a man-made fiber and therefore will not break down the same way.

that they would have in their original form. So when we look at these fabrics, they are great for some things. Yes, we love technical fiber that's going to wick sweat away. Great. But the manmade version of that is going to not last as well as, a merino wool technical fabric that still likely has some stretch to it, but is a higher

a more superior fiber in how it was created, in terms of how it was grown and harvested.

Host (39:14)
This was my question. Marina wool shirts that we get at the store, are those okay? I mean... Oh, what level of okay are they?

Sharilyn (39:23)
I don't want to be like

the. So they are, some are of course better than others. So it really, just, I encourage us all to be doing our research, whether we're buying ready to wear or whether we're buying fabric to make our own garments. Our money is, things are expensive. And when we're making a purchase, like a merino wool base layer, they're not cheap.

Host (39:47)
No.

Sharilyn (39:48)
are

cheap, they're probably not made in ideal circumstances. So this is the other thing we haven't really talked about in terms of like ready to wear clothing is like where are clothes being made? Humans are still making clothes and they are being made in terrible conditions, sweatshops for like pennies a day. And this is essentially a feminist issue coming back to my whole conversation about feminism from earlier.

because it's generally women and young girls who are in these sweatshops working to support their families. So when you're buying, say, a Merino wool shirt for $20 and you see another Merino wool shirt,

Host (40:27)
I think they're more like 140 or something. $20 one.

Sharilyn (40:30)
Well, you can buy a $20 one at

one of our favorite big box stores. Absolutely. You can.

Host (40:36)
Okay.

Sharilyn (40:39)
But doing the research and seeing where it's made, where the fiber comes from. So there's some companies like, not to like name drop, but there's like, since we're talking about Merino, there's Simply Merino, which is a Vancouver company. Their base layers are going to be like 100 to 140.

If you want to know everything about that company, it's listed on their website. You want to know where they are made? You want to know who's making them? They'll tell you. They'll sell you scraps of fabric to repair your merino that might have gotten a hole in it. So when I say quality, that to me, that transparency in where the garment is being made.

the fibers, where the fibers are coming from, that is a higher quality than the $20 version from a big box store, which is likely being made overseas in sweatshops still by humans. So whether you're buying a ready-to-wear garment or you're buying fabric off of the bolts or the roll, you still have that research to do, I think. And I would encourage us all to research it because

when we spend our money, we want to buy something that's going to last. We don't want to buy something that's going to fall apart in like two to three months or less than a year, you know?

Host (41:57)
Yeah. So, yeah. I love your passion.

the whole point of it. sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed because even as I just look around the house it seems like every aspect of our lives this is the same scenario whether it's clothing whether it's food vehicles or electronics or like everything and my goodness

Sharilyn (42:21)
What's it called? Planned obsolescence.

Host (42:24)
Have you heard of that? No. Tell me more.

Sharilyn (42:26)
Well,

it's a marketing term. I guess it's not a marketing term. It is when a company produces a product, but also plans how long it's going to last. okay.

Host (42:35)
I had a friend from university in engineering got a job afterwards that was actually working for one of these appliance, big brand name appliances to engineer certain parts to degrade after five to seven years. Like that literally was their job. And you see it, you see it like.

Sharilyn (42:53)
It's in everything. It's cars, our phones. ⁓ Ready to wear clothing. You hear people complaining how their jeans wear through so fast. Yeah, because your jeans aren't designed to last longer than a year. They're designed to fail you, which is so frustrating. So I think when we, again, going back to sewing, when we take

Host (42:57)
lot of

Yeah.

Sharilyn (43:18)
the power away from people making decisions like that by making our own clothes or mending what we already have. Because really there is no better garment than the one you already have and that you're taking care of it. know, like when you're fixing it, when you're washing it properly, when you're not like, you know, abusing your garments and they're cared for in a ideal, optimal way. That's the garment that's the most sustainable garment on the planet right now is what you already own.

Host (43:45)
Thinking of cleaning your garments properly, is that part of your education? When you have your fabrics? What are the different processes to properly care for the types of linens that you use?

Sharilyn (43:58)
Yeah,

so linen is super easy to care for. You're going to wash it on cold and you're going to hang it to dry.

Host (44:04)
that's it. That's it. Is there any textile that you have that's more complicated? Sure.

Sharilyn (44:08)
I

mean I carry like boiled wool which is a little bit more of a complicated beast. mean with wool, 100 % wool, shouldn't, you don't need to wash it unless it gets dirty. Wool and linen are actually antimicrobial so you don't have to worry a ton about BO. Yeah cotton, cotton is not...

Host (44:24)
Really?

Cotton Stinky

Sharilyn (44:29)
Cotton gets stinky. But yeah, linen and wool really like low maintenance and people think that they're not, but they are. Yeah.

Host (44:36)
Yeah, I

had that impression too. I have no idea. I'm like racking my brain right now trying to figure out why I have that impression, but I have no idea why.

Sharilyn (44:45)
Well, and again, it's like one of those things, like laundry shouldn't be complicated, but it's something that isn't often passed on beyond like we need to be clean and we need to clean our clothes and we're to dump everything into the washing machine and we're going to use whatever laundry soap somebody's told us to use on a commercial. And that's kind of the extent of a lot of people's laundry education. But like when you

keep it simple, you know, wash on cold hang to dry is not hard. I wash my sweaters, my hand knit sweaters and sweaters that I've bought at the store, I wash them like twice a year. Once in the fall before I wear them when they come out of storage and once in the spring before they go back into storage. Yeah, unless I spill coffee on them.

Host (45:14)
now.

that's cool.

Yeah Yeah, we don't see the what do call those things in the backyard? More to use to smell so good on the laundry line sheets like Betty

Sharilyn (45:39)
yeah, the laundry line. Yeah.

Good.

Coming home and getting into bed with fresh sheets that were line dried. The best. Yeah.

Yeah, and I think, you know, like I said, it sounds complicated, but sewing your own clothes. Hmm. I mean, it's great because it is very simple. It's also a really mindful act. I think a lot of people who do work in really high stress jobs or on their computers a lot take to sewing because it is an act of wellness and it gives it a

allows people to step away for a couple of hours from their own jobs and just to focus on themselves.

Host (46:22)
It calms your mind too. Because you're fixated on a single task and everything kind of melts away. It's all meditative in a bit. can get into that zone.

Sharilyn (46:32)
And then you get an amazing dopamine rush when you put on your homemade garment. You're like, I made this.

Host (46:38)
Yeah, that's pretty cool. Hey, do you have classes that are adult and kid together? Like bring your daughter?

Sharilyn (46:43)
You know, I

have a lot of folks book in with their kids, because I don't have like a combined class. But I do have a lot of folks who will like book in with their families. I've had like all aspects of people with older teens come through my adult classes. So I just had a mom and her son, who I think was in grade 11, come through recently. And they had so much fun together. They sewed a pillowcase and a tote bag.

which are like my two very beginner projects, they seem to have fun.

Host (47:12)
⁓ I guess that leads to another question. Do you sell the, what are those paper fold out things called? the patterns? ⁓

Sharilyn (47:19)
patterns. I do sell some

patterns. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I sell a couple of different types of indie patterns. Right now I have Merchant Mills and SoLiberated. Both companies have amazing instructions and are really well fit tested. They're kind of really reliable, which is why I carry them. But yeah, I do sell patterns.

Host (47:37)
These things you don't think of, you know? okay, what else do I need? And you just show up and you have everything there. Do you have storage lockers or do people usually bring and then take back their...

Sharilyn (47:47)
People take their stuff home with them. So when they're in between they're working on their Usually they take it home with them because I have so many people in and out of the shop I don't want anybody's stuff to go

Thanks for stopping into the store and asking if I wanted to do this.