By guest blogger Janine Vangool—curator, editor, designer and publisher of UPPERCASE magazine
CALGARY AB I’ve had an eclectic creative career, from working as a freelance graphic designer to teaching to having a line of wholesale greeting cards to sewing products to running my own gallery and bookshop. In 2009, I launched UPPERCASE, a quarterly print magazine for the creative and curious. It combines everything that I’ve learned and loved over the years so now publishing is my main focus.
Each issue of the magazine has a unique pattern that goes on the spine, cover and throughout the issue, so after many years I’ve accumulated quite a nice collection of patterns. Through some good fortune and nice connections, I was able to pitch the idea of turning them into textiles with Windham Fabrics.
I grew up sewing—when I was little, my mom did alterations for a women’s clothing store and grandmother sewed drapery professionally. Having an entire collection of fabric is really special. Now I can say that I sew professionally as well, at least when it came to making some of the samples and projects to publish in the UPPERCASE Look Book for Windham Fabrics!
Thankfully my mom made some of the quilts and the team at Windham supplied samples, too, like the tuffet shown in the top photo. The full list of projects and credits are in the free digital Look Book.
With all this colorful fabric around my home and studio, I’m happy to say that my son has taken an interest in sewing. He started his own quilt improvised from my offcuts and scraps, bringing a love for fabric and sewing into another generation.
To visit the Uppercase website +click here
To visit the Windham Fabrics website +click here
Photos by Kirstie Tweed
