Natalie – Sew Hungry Hippie

Natalie is a former Army Nurse Corps Officer turned (self-proclaimed) tree hugging, granola eating “hippie”. She creates patterns for sewing and quilting projects, lots of tutorials, and other quick makes that are modern and fresh, with the aim of helping everyone through – no matter their skill level. Sewhungryhippie is all about MAKING. Just get started and stop worrying about the rest. FOR REAL.
Among other things, she is known for her COLORFUL and easy to sew vinyl selection — she has you covered if you’re new to sewing this material! She also carries amazing hardware, zippers, and notions! She has great style, and will only sell what she would use and would buy herself.
Please enjoy this fabulous interview with Natalie of Sew Hungry Hippie!

Sew Hungry Hippie Show Notes:

Shop all the fabulous Sew Hungry Hippie Vinyl types here.
Join the Sew Hungry Hippie email list here.
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And Natalie has her own podcast you can listen to here.

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Sew Hungry Hippie Interview Transcript:

Carolina Moore:
I love notions and I’m guessing that you do too. Hey there, friend. It’s Carolina Moore, your favorite sewing and quilting YouTuber and now podcaster, here with another episode.
So we’re hanging out in your gorgeous booth. I’ll have to take pictures so people can see how amazing this is. But I want to start at the very beginning for people who don’t know you.

Natalie:
Yes.

Carolina Moore:
So you’re Sew Hungry Hippie. What’s your origin story? What’s your villain story?

Natalie:
Well, thanks for asking. It’s such a surprise to me where I am right now because I never saw this in my life. As a young teenager, even into my 20s, I was a nurse, an RN in the army. I thought that was going to be my career because I just really loved it. I love helping and serving people. And weirdly enough, I met my husband on a double-blind date, and he was military, but we couldn’t get married because he was enlisted and I was an officer. So yeah.

Carolina Moore:
Forbid in love.

Natalie:
Always breaking the rules. So I decided to get out because I thought, well, this is something new. And then we got orders for him to go to England, and that’s where everything started because we really couldn’t make enough money to put enough food on the table. Isn’t that sad as an enlisted person?

Carolina Moore:
It really is.

Natalie:
So I had Mia already, she was one year old when we moved there, and then Ruby came along, surprisingly, and I thought, oh my gosh, I have to put money on the table. And honestly, I was a little depressed because I couldn’t work and my whole identity was wrapped up in being a trauma nurse.

Carolina Moore:
And being in another country and needing visas and whatnot to be able to work.

Natalie:
Oh, it was so expensive. It was prohibitive because childcare, as you know, is so expensive. So I would’ve been working and negative balance to pay the childcare. So we decided I would stay home, and I thought, what can I do to help put money on the table? And I started sewing. And I’m not joking you, I was immediately hooked.

Carolina Moore:
Oh.

Natalie:
Yeah. I had to sew every day. I didn’t know what a bobbin was. Can you believe that?

Carolina Moore:
That’s so awesome.

Natalie:
Oh my gosh. I think back, and I think how did I… I just looked at books. Read blogs. At the time, I couldn’t get YouTube because our internet in England was a joke. We just couldn’t get it. So I just dove into blogs, books, rented books from the library, and slowly, I made a lot of mistakes, just kept going. And I had to sew every single day. So soon I was selling bags that I made, or eventually quilts, lap sized quilts that I would just do on my machine. And people were so encouraging there.
The British folks, they really value handmade, because for them it’s super important to have something unique. And so I had a lot of support that way. And I started doing shows, craft shows we would call them, I guess. But the biggest one was this Undley Pumpkin Patch one. And I made enough money there in four weeks to pay our oil, our heating bills for the whole year.

Carolina Moore:
Oh, wow.

Natalie:
Yeah, it was incredible. So that built my confidence, and that’s where it really all started. It’s like a dream. I never saw that. So after making a bunch of things all the time and lots of pressure of trying to sew to produce, I figured, okay, I got to be smarter here.

Carolina Moore:
You were a one woman sweatshop.

Natalie:
Exactly. All the time, sewing until four in the morning. And so I thought, how can I do better? I thought, let’s start writing patterns. And so I would test them on friends. I always ask, what is confusing? Please tell me everything. What can I word better? Because I want everyone to be able to decipher my patterns.

Carolina Moore:
The best pattern designers don’t have ego about it.

Natalie:
Exactly.

Carolina Moore:
The pattern is written for the person reading it, not the person writing it.

Natalie:
Exactly. 100%. That is the perfect, succinct phrase right there.

Carolina Moore:
The person writing it already knows how to do it. That’s why they’re writing it.

Natalie:
Exactly.

Carolina Moore:
Well, hopefully they know how to do it. Sometimes they don’t. That’s a whole other story.

Natalie:
And yeah, that’s where we are. I mean, I tell people all the time, a lot of times these overnight success people, you don’t see a decade of work behind it.

Carolina Moore:
Sure.

Natalie:
And so my journey has been slow and steady, and it’s okay. It’s okay.

Carolina Moore:
Well, I was told early on that it takes 8 to 10 years to become an overnight success. So thankfully, someone told me that, and I was prepared for the slog to become an overnight success.

Natalie:
Right, yeah.

Carolina Moore:
Yeah. Because to the world, it looks overnight.

Natalie:
Sure.

Carolina Moore:
But to those of us who are in the trenches, it was a lot of trench.

Natalie:
Definitely a lot, yeah.

Carolina Moore:
Exactly. So I know you, first know you for your vinyl.

Natalie:
Yes.

Carolina Moore:
Because you have this amazing variety of all different kinds of vinyl. Can you tell me about what got you into vinyl? What did you start with and tell me about some of the different kinds you have.

Natalie:
Okay. Well, what’s funny is I loved working with it, and I realized that people didn’t know where to get it. And there’s a big variance of vinyl types. Some is really terrible and some is really great. And so my friend Wendy at the time said, “You know where all this stuff is, why don’t you start providing it to people? Because it’s really hard to find.”

Carolina Moore:
Yes.

Natalie:
And I thank her for that because that is really where I finally could feel like I was truly contributing to my family. And so I design sort of. What I mean by that is colors and sparkle and putting elements together. And then I send pictures to a factory overseas, and we go through testing because a lot of times it won’t work for a home sewing machine. So we have to dial it down and figure out, okay, how can the average sewist at home with an average machine make this work? And so then when the samples are right, then we mass produce and import that. And it’s such a learning experience. So that is how I ended up providing vinyl is because at the time, nobody had it really, except maybe some boat companies. But that vinyl is very thick.

Carolina Moore:
Because it’s sewn on an industrial machine. And most of us don’t have an industrial machine.

Natalie:
Exactly. And I still don’t.

Carolina Moore:
No, I don’t either.

Natalie:
And I always tell people, if I can’t sew it, I don’t sell it. So through all the testing and importing and all the drama and hard work behind that, I find what works and then put it on my website.

Carolina Moore:
So for people who can’t see, and I’ll have links in the show notes for people to be able to look at, but when we’re talking vinyl, we’re talking the clear vinyl that most of us are used to for making a see-through bag, but it’s also faux, I think it’s called vegan leather now.

Natalie:
Sure.

Carolina Moore:
Used to be called pleather when I was younger.

Natalie:
Right. Remember pleather?

Carolina Moore:
Now it’s vegan leather.

Natalie:
Well, what’s funny is vegan leather is technically a product with absolutely no animal products in it. And so a lot of times people are using that and it’s not technically correct.

Carolina Moore:
Oh, interesting.

Natalie:
Right. So it’s really faux leather.

Carolina Moore:
Yes.

Natalie:
So I do have a lot of the opaques, I always like colorfuls. I’ve added neutrals to my arsenal because I know a lot of people like their browns, their whites, their blacks. So we have that. But I think I’m really known for super colorful, vibrant, a lot of iridescent. And then, yeah, I definitely have tons of clear. The glitters, the stars, the hearts, things that I love. And some may say I have a teenage style, and I embrace that. I love it.

Carolina Moore:
Absolutely.

Natalie:
I love it.

Carolina Moore:
Isn’t it like Lisa Frank?

Natalie:
Yes, totally.

Carolina Moore:
Lisa Frank is in again. And for those of us who grew up with Lisa Frank and those folders and all of our yes, stationary items were all-

Natalie:
Trapper keeper, Lisa Frank style.

Carolina Moore:
Yes. I mean, I think she did everything.

Natalie:
Yes.

Carolina Moore:
And she had style. And you embody a trendy, modern version of yes, a sewing Lisa Frank.

Natalie:
I love that. Thank you so much. Sometimes my husband, he’s from the Dominican Republic, and he’ll say, “You remind me of Cyndi Lauper.” And I’m like, thank you.

Carolina Moore:
Yes, I can see that. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. And all of that, all the 80s are totally coming back.

Natalie:
Yeah, they are.

Carolina Moore:
In sometimes a frightening way. I’m like, no, not the tight roll.

Natalie:
We could have left that in the 80s. That was a home game there. Leave the perms.

Carolina Moore:
So people can find your Sew Hungry Hippie products in local quilt shops as well, right?

Natalie:
Yes, they can.

Carolina Moore:
Because you sell there.

Natalie:
Yes. We do wholesale for brick and mortar shops and some online stores. And then we also opened a brick and mortar last year.

Carolina Moore:
I saw that.

Natalie:
Very new. Five miles outside Madison, Wisconsin. And it’s very small, but it’s cute and cozy. And I encourage people, if they want to come in, please come by, say hi. We have a bigger area in the back, so that’s where we do our online shipping and polling for orders. And so sometimes people will come in and say, “Well, I know you have this. I don’t see it out here.” And I’ll say, “Let me go get it from the back. No problem.” Yeah. So it’s been fun.
I’ve learned a lot from having a brick and mortar, a real shop in the flesh, because you realize what people need in real time. And I love the support, answering the questions. One lady came in and said, “I have no idea how to do a boxed corner. I’ve watched your videos, but it doesn’t… I just don’t get it.” And so I took out some jelly vinyl and I did it right in front of her right then on the fly, took out my machine. Here we go, watch. And then had her do it, and she was like, oh my God. That was it.

Carolina Moore:
I firmly believe that local quilt shops are a national treasure.

Natalie:
They are.

Carolina Moore:
And this is why, because local quilt shops, they tend to find talent. People who understand this industry. The person behind the counter is someone who either has done or is learning, actively wanting to learn the things that we all do and make. And so if they don’t know the answer, they know someone who knows the answer.

Natalie:
Exactly.

Carolina Moore:
Because we can’t all know everything, but they can just say, “Oh, but you know who does have this answer?” And even if they’re sending you to someone like, I watched this YouTube video, they’re just an extra point of reference. They’re like a quilty librarian who can point you in the right directions to get your answers.

Natalie:
That’s such a great term. That’s exactly how it is.

Carolina Moore:
I love libraries. Libraries know everything.

Natalie:
I love libraries. But I think back, and I could never really master that card catalog.

Carolina Moore:
Oh.

Natalie:
I always ask for help.

Carolina Moore:
The card catalogs are best repurposed as antiques that we can now put all our tchotchkes in.

Natalie:
Yes, exactly.

Carolina Moore:
We can leave those in the 80s along with the really short shorts.

Natalie:
Oh my gosh. Yeah. I love going into quilt shops. Anytime we travel, I try to hit the local quilt shops.

Carolina Moore:
Absolutely.

Natalie:
The knowledge in there, it’s amazing. I mean, no matter where you go,

Carolina Moore:
Yes.

Natalie:
I love in, there’s a local shop in Madison, Blue Bar, and there was a lady working there, Julie, who, she could just math out what you needed for a backing on a quilt in seconds. And I would just look at her. How do you even do that? I need to do a formula or something.

Carolina Moore:
Right. Just magic math in their head.

Natalie:
Crazy.

Carolina Moore:
Quilt math right in their head. I still need a post-it note for everything. All my quilt math is always on a post-it note first.

Natalie:
Brilliant.

Carolina Moore:
Yes.

Natalie:
Are you one of those people with a big wall with tons of post-it notes?

Carolina Moore:
I wish.

Natalie:
I wish I was too.

Carolina Moore:
I live in 1200 square feet in San Diego.

Natalie:
Oh my gosh.

Carolina Moore:
And I lived in a house twice as big in Las Vegas, in new construction in Las Vegas.

Natalie:
Of course.

Carolina Moore:
And when we moved to San Diego, I got half the square feet at twice the cost. But what I didn’t realize is that I was also going to have half the walls to put things on. You don’t think about that. When you lose the square footage, you also lose that circumference of the walls. So there are so many family photos that I haven’t seen in eight years because they got tucked away because they don’t fit on my walls.

Natalie:
Oh my gosh. What made you move there?

Carolina Moore:
My husband got a job transfer.

Natalie:
Okay. Do you love San Diego?

Carolina Moore:
Sometimes I love the weather. Sometimes I want my sunshine tax rebate because we pay a sunshine tax in California.

Natalie:
What?

Carolina Moore:
In terms of, it’s a joke. Because we pay so much more to live in California. We call it the sunshine tax. And so on cloudy days, we want our rebate because it’s not sunny today. Or on rainy days, we really want our rebate.

Natalie:
I bet.

Carolina Moore:
But I mean, it’s a small house, but the schools are great. The community is great. There’s lots for the kids to do. It’s very family friendly. And if you can’t find anything else to do, there’s always the beach.

Natalie:
Amazing.

Carolina Moore:
But it’s incredibly expensive. And we live in an ancient, tiny house. Because you used to work out of your house before you got the shop.

Natalie:
Oh, yes. Every square foot was used.

Carolina Moore:
Yes.

Natalie:
So I always tell people, your house is for living and for using. And so nothing in my house is on display or perfect, or I don’t know what that is. And no offense to people who live that way where everything is perfect at all. But what I mean is sometimes people would come in my house at that time and be like, “Oh my gosh, what is all this stuff in here?”
In the dining room. “Oh, this is orders going out. We process all these orders right here. I’m using my house. We don’t eat at a dining table. We eat in the kitchen.” So I’ve never been embarrassed about the journey where I came from because it’s part of your story. Embrace it. It made me who I am. I’m incredibly perseverant and I am sensitive, and I feel things deeply, but at the same time, you have to be tough because it’s not easy, is it?

Carolina Moore:
No, it isn’t. So I want to talk, you also have zippers.

Natalie:
Yes.

Carolina Moore:
And you have some of the most amazing, fun zippers to play with.

Natalie:
Thank you.

Carolina Moore:
Because they’re like rainbow and stripy.

Natalie:
Yes. Colorful. Lots of stripes. I feel like a stripe goes with everything. So at first I was-

Carolina Moore:
Stripe is a neutral. I like it.

Natalie:
Yes. Just like leopard is a neutral to me.

Carolina Moore:
It is. Agreed.

Natalie:
So I started with leopard zippers, and then people were asking for strapping. I brought in the seatbelt webbing, strapping, that style, and then I brought in black and white stripe zippers, and they were going like crazy. So then came along black and white stripe webbing. I call it webbing, strapping, webbing. And then just recently we introduced, I think eight more colors, pink and green and couple of blues, orange.

Carolina Moore:
In the zippers?

Natalie:
And the zippers too. Yeah, they match. And also the glitter webbing, which is strapping on totes or duffles. And you can use it for key fobs because I like shiny, so I had to get the glitters in. I think we’ll add more colors eventually, but I listen to my customers and I try to bring in what they’re asking for repeatedly. And so recently, I brought in a red faux leather.
I usually don’t do red because it’s just so strong for me. I like pink. This red is perfect in this faux leather. And I said, “I got it for you guys.” And it’s going well. So I’m very happy about it. So yeah, eventually we’ll have some red zippers and red webbing, and yeah, we go slowly, take steps, see what works, that kind of thing. As a small business, I think you have more flexibility to do that.

Carolina Moore:
Yes.

Natalie:
You can listen to your customers more closely. Everything is closer.

Carolina Moore:
Yes.

Natalie:
So yeah, lots of shiny.

Carolina Moore:
So other than red, what’s next for Sew Hungry Hippie?

Natalie:
I have done some online classes because I am on YouTube, but I think there’s so much on YouTube sometimes, people can’t find things. And so I decided how can we bring this more quickly to people? I did some of my patterns in online class formats, starting from cutting out the pattern pieces, fusing the interfacing, and then each step. And so there is a small fee for those classes, but the feedback has been really positive. So I think we’re going to do a lot more classes, and I hope to branch it out into other people’s patterns as well, if they allow it.

Carolina Moore:
Oh, great.

Natalie:
Yeah, because I think I’m not going to do necessarily a garment pattern, but I would love to choose one of my favorites and film a class on it so that other people feel confident. And sometimes all they need to see is you doing it one time and then they’ve got it, and then they’ll buy that pattern, of course.

Carolina Moore:
Of course. Yeah. Now we’re recording this in June, almost end of June, but we just recently had Me Made May, and you have some of the most fun, and you have these me mades that, because you have this great, we just talked about your Lisa Frank style that make me go, oh my gosh, I wish that I could dress like you do. You have the most fun, quirky, just… Yes.

Natalie:
Quirky and colorful.

Carolina Moore:
Yes.

Natalie:
Yeah, thank you. When I was about 20, I had a boyfriend at the time that told me, why do you wear such colorful stuff? It’s garish. And pretty soon after I was like, bye.

Carolina Moore:
Yeah. Well, because I need color in my life, but I do not need you in my life.

Natalie:
And so I just embrace it. Color makes me feel alive. It makes me feel happy. And so I’ll pair things up that maybe aren’t matchy-matchy at all, but for me, it works.

Carolina Moore:
Yes.

Natalie:
And so I just go with it. And my Me Made May, I thought, well, I’m just going to show how I really dress, and I will layer pants under a dress and have a scarf on and different colored glasses or whatever. I’ll just do it. Embrace it. Yeah. And what’s funny is a lot of people I think like that look, maybe not for them, but they like to see it.

Carolina Moore:
Oh, absolutely.

Natalie:
Yeah. And then maybe they’ll put on a pink or a teal scarf in their next outfit where usually they would’ve been beige or tan or, I don’t know. I just-

Carolina Moore:
Yeah. But inspire, okay, so maybe I’m not going to go full Natalie.

Natalie:
Full on, right.

Carolina Moore:
But I can have a Natalie inspired.

Natalie:
Yes, something like that. Yeah. I love it. It’s fun. Sometimes I’ll be in the grocery store and someone will stop me, “Where did you get that dress?” And I’ll say, “Oh, I made it.”

Carolina Moore:
Oh, that’s so fun, isn’t it?

Natalie:
It’s fun. I don’t want to feel like I’m bragging, like, oh, I made it, but it was really easy. I mean, my hem isn’t turned under. No, I got to stop doing that.

Carolina Moore:
Yeah. They don’t know that.

Natalie:
No, they don’t.

Carolina Moore:
They don’t know that you haven’t turned your hem, that you just serged the edges or whatever.

Natalie:
Right.

Carolina Moore:
Yeah. No one will know that.

Natalie:
No. And we’ve had, I’ll tell you what, a big increase in the store of young sewists, early 20s.

Carolina Moore:
Oh, that’s so fun to hear.

Natalie:
Oh, so fun. Because they’re ready to just do whatever. They’re not afraid of messing up, really.

Carolina Moore:
Yes.

Natalie:
Because they don’t know. Sometimes ignorance is bliss because what you don’t know you’re not afraid of. And so they’ll just say, “Oh, well, I want to make this dress.” And I’ll say, “Yep, you can do it. Let’s go.”

Carolina Moore:
That’s one of the things with quilters that I would love to beat out of our community is that we pass on fears.

Natalie:
Yes.

Carolina Moore:
I did curves in my 20s. I did a quilt with curves because I didn’t know any better.

Natalie:
Sure.

Carolina Moore:
I mean, I did foundation paper piecing on this huge scale. I didn’t even know what foundation paper piecing was. And I was like, oh, I can probably make that.

Natalie:
That’s amazing.

Carolina Moore:
And I mean, did it turn out perfect? No, but I jumped in and tried it, and I had a great time. And then years later, I got into a quilting community and people were like, “Oh, that has curves.” And I was like, “Wait, wait. Was I supposed to be scared? I missed that class.”

Natalie:
Wow. Isn’t that something?

Carolina Moore:
I just didn’t know that I was supposed to be scared. And if you don’t know you’re supposed to be scared, then you’re not scared and you just do it. So if someone tells you, “Ooh, that’s scary.” I had someone tell me that entering a quilt show, she was afraid to enter a quilt show, and she was way more experienced than I was. And I felt that she was a lot more talented than I was as well. And I thought, well, if she’s afraid to enter a quilt show, then I have absolutely no business doing it.

Natalie:
Oh, no.

Carolina Moore:
So that probably held me back from entering a quilt show for five years, because I adopted her fear. And then I moved to a new city, nobody knew me, and I thought, okay, nobody knows me here, so there’ll be no shame in entering a quilt show.

Natalie:
Sure.

Carolina Moore:
I entered the quilt show and I won second place.

Natalie:
Oh my gosh.

Carolina Moore:
And at that moment was when I decided, okay, I’m not adopting anyone’s fears anymore. I’m also not sharing my fears with other people.

Natalie:
Oh, smart.

Carolina Moore:
And I’m telling other people to stop being scared of curves. Stop being scared of anything that you’re quote, unquote, scared of is just something you haven’t learned yet.

Natalie:
Yes. It’s so right. And then you learn it.

Carolina Moore:
Yeah.

Natalie:
And then we’re smarter. I swear Nike has the best lingo ever. Just do it.

Carolina Moore:
Just do it.

Natalie:
Seriously. Just do it.

Carolina Moore:
Yep.

Natalie:
Get up and do it.

Carolina Moore:
Do it ugly. Do it bad.

Natalie:
Yes.

Carolina Moore:
Do it over again.

Natalie:
Yes.

Carolina Moore:
That’s all fine.

Natalie:
Exactly.

Carolina Moore:
Just do it.

Natalie:
Somebody just posted about her mugs and how it didn’t fire correctly, and I said, “Actually, I’d really like a second because I like things that aren’t perfect.” I like those. I have a friend who has this one tooth that sticks out a little bit. And I tell her, I love that about you. It makes you so unique and pretty to me. Yeah. I really love that about things. I don’t know what that is, but…

Carolina Moore:
It makes something, because humans are not perfect.

Natalie:
Right.

Carolina Moore:
People are actually not symmetrical. We think we are. But if you actually fold a picture of your face in half, it doesn’t line up perfect. We are not perfect. We’re designed imperfect.

Natalie:
Geez. And that’s why maybe I gravitate towards that.

Carolina Moore:
I love it.

Natalie:
Yeah, so just pick out that machine, those scissors, and just go for it.

Carolina Moore:
It has been so fun chatting with you.

Natalie:
Thank you for having me.

Carolina Moore:
I’ll be adding all the places that people can find you and connect with you and fall in love with you the way that I have, and be inspired by you. Thanks so much for taking this time. I wish we could talk for hours and hours more, and I hope we will someday.

Natalie:
Yes, we will. Thank you for having me.

Carolina Moore:
Friends, that’s our episode for today. I hope you loved it as much as I loved having this conversation. Remember that you can find all the details that we talked about in the show notes, and those are all at ilovenotions.com. And make sure to leave this podcast a review in your favorite podcasting app. Leaving it a review will let people know that maybe they should listen as well and it will help the podcast algorithm show this podcast to other people who love notions just as much as we do. Friends, that’s all I have for you today, but I will see you right here, real soon. Bye for now.

New to the podcast? Start with Season 1, episode 1 here.