When I realized that Nina Chang-Smith, the designer and founder behind her indie pattern company, Nina Lee Patterns, had moved from London to the Bay Area, I invited her to be Bay Area Sewists‘ guest speaker in September 2022. It was our first indoor, in-person event since the pandemic began. Our Meetup group had been meeting on Zoom since May 2020 and then had a couple of outdoor meetups in the summer of 2022. I’ve been the organizer for Bay Area Sewists since 2014.

The event was a Q&A with Nina Chang-Smith held in the classroom space at Lacis in Berkeley. After the Q&A, Nina also showed how you can change the closure on a pattern (i.e. from zippers to keyhole openings). I took all the photos except for the one of her in the lavender jumpsuit.

I meant to publish this post months ago but I just... [read more]