I’m the woman behind “The Needle & The Bell{e}”.

My mom gifted me my first sewing machine at 13 along with 1 set of sewing lessons that I took with my neighbor. We made these super lame drawstring bags and I was over sewing before I’d really given it a chance. When I was in my first marriage, I think my mom saw that it was getting ready to end so she gifted me with yet another sewing machine so that I could have a hobby that was just mine. As a plus size woman struggling with finding clothes that I loved, I was ready to rock this sewing thing out–until I saw the directions for what was supposed to be a simple dress.

Simple, not.

I struggled the dress but was determined to teach myself how to sew. This was before YouTube University was really big so I bought some books to teach me the sewing jargon I needed and set out to learn. But then I filed for divorce, ended up pregnant and obviously distracted. While pregnant with my 2nd daughter, I broke out my sewing machine and I was determined to upcycle clothes to create a maternity wardrobe. I mean, if I couldn’t figure out how to make them from scratch the least I could do was take someone else’s starting point, right?

From there I’ve grown to sewing 90% of my wardrobe along with my 3 kids and husband. I sew with the following machines:

BERNINA B590 - BERNINA L890