We are recording today on the traditional ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish and Kwa Kwa Kwa Kiwak peoples,

including Slalo Tooth, Squamish, Musqueam, and Kolmok's First Nations.

Hello and welcome to Love to So I'm Caroline, the owner of Blackproof Fabrics and BF Patterns.

And I'm Helen, the designer behind Helen's Closet Patterns and Cedar Quiltco.

We're two sewing buds who love to sew and it's essentially all we want to talk about.

Today we're interviewing Claire Bernie from So Outdoor Z. We chat with her about technical fabrics,

weather proofing your mimeeds, gear sewing techniques, and designing plus size patterns for active wear.

If you love to sew, this is your show.

Hello Claire, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

No worries, thank you for having me on.

We're so excited to chat with you about everything you've got going on.

But to kick us off, can you please introduce yourself to our listeners?

I'm Claire Bernie, 38-year-old woman from England as you've probably guessed by my voice.

My pronouns are she, her, and yeah, I created So Outdoor Z in 2020.

And I've been invited on this lovely podcast, so I'm really excited.

Amazing. We always ask our guests how and when they learn to sew.

We love kicking off our interviews that way.

So can you start us off with that? We'd love to hear about your sewing journey.

I learned to sew as a lot of people in the UK did in like the 80s, 90s in school.

We had like a home economic slash sewing classes that would be part of the curriculum.

And so I learned to do bags and ties and the usual things that kids do.

But I never took it to GCSE level or any further study.

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