From Pinstripes to Patchwork

Hello!

My name is Julia McLeod and I’m thrilled to join Laura, Pati and Kirsten in ‘See How We Sew’. As a resource for quilters, sewists and crafters, our goal is to share ideas, inspiration and information.

Mine is a familiar story: I’ve been drawn to fabric and sewing since I was a little girl, growing up in England. Both my parents were good with their hands. My father made the violin I play to this day and my mother sewed her own clothes and a couple of new dresses for me each summer. Those dress-making scraps were my favorite play-things.

Graduating with a degree in textile design, my career took a few twists and turns. I found myself specializing in the design of luxury fabrics for the menswear industry. A job in New York City’s menswear industry brought me and my husband to the United States in the early 1990’s and the rest is history. We’ve raised two American daughters here and have yet to return to ‘the olde country’.

As you might expect, for many years I worked with a pretty conservative color palette - I can talk at length about what makes a particular shade of navy, beige or grey terribly wrong or just right!

Here's an example of a grey pinstripe my company sold to J. Crew, back in the '90s.