Connection, Confidence & Community with Melissa Santiago-Val from Sew Positive

I set up this charity five years ago.

Um, my background in sewing is, I would say probably like many people who've sewed, a mixed bag.

[laughs] So when I first started sewing at school, I really, really hated it because in, in the education system it was, was really boring and it was just, it took, like, a year to make a skirt or something, and it wasn't a skirt I wanted to wear anyway, and I didn't like it, so I didn't bother, bother doing it after that for quite some years.

And my mom sewed, but I think, you know, her generation...

W- my mom made my school uniform dresses and things like that because fabric was affordable, and so it was seen as a way of, of, of saving money, whereas now fabric is obviously quite expensive.

And, um, so I didn't come to it until quite later on, really.

And then all I was doing before the pandemic was sewing bunting and cushions, and I love textile art, and I'd found that sort of creativity had started to flourish in me.

But I, I think, again, sort of challenging the view that we're not creative when we're at school, and I thought, "Oh, you know, I don't feel that anymore." So, um, I wanted to follow that.

And then COVID hit, and I was, I was furloughed and I...

Basically, a friend of mine said...

I'd got my sewing machine out.

I was making my mom, like, an appliqué cushion for her birthday.

And she said, "Oh, um, why don't we make some masks and see if we can raise some money for the NHS?" And I said, "Actually, yeah, I'd quite like to do that because I'm furloughed, and I want to keep myself busy." So, you know.

I said, "I don't know how to make a mask." So she said, "Oh, there's this new thing called Zoom.

We can, um, we can work it out." So we worked out a way.

She'd got a way of making them, and then we tweaked that.

And, um, we started making masks, and we set up a fundraiser for the NHS.

Obviously, you know what happens next.

Um, we needed more masks.

We needed more people volunteering to sew masks.

We needed more fabric.

And so w- it then started to really snowball.

And I think the thing that really surprised me was how many people in my own area I didn't know, that I thought I knew my village really well, that sort of came out of the woodwork.

And they weren't just sewing.

They were, they were washing fabrics.

I set up this charity five years ago.

Um, my background in sewing is, I would say probably like many people who've sewed, a mixed bag.

[laughs] So when I first started sewing at school, I really, really hated it because in, in the education system it was, was really boring and it was just, it took, like, a year to make a skirt or something, and it wasn't a skirt I wanted to wear anyway, and I didn't like it, so I didn't bother, bother doing it after that for quite some years.

And my mom sewed, but I think, you know, her generation...

W- my mom made my school uniform dresses and things like that because fabric was affordable, and so it was seen as a way of, of, of saving money, whereas now fabric is obviously quite expensive.

And, um, so I didn't come to it until quite later on, really.

And then all I was doing before the pandemic was sewing bunting and cushions, and I love textile art, and I'd found that sort of creativity had started to flourish in me.

But I, I think, again, sort of challenging the view that we're not creative when we're at school, and I thought, "Oh, you know, I don't feel that anymore." So, um, I wanted to follow that.

And then COVID hit, and I was, I was furloughed and I...

Basically, a friend of mine said...

I'd got my sewing machine out.

I was making my mom, like, an appliqué cushion for her birthday.

And she said, "Oh, um, why don't we make some masks and see if we can raise some money for the NHS?" And I said, "Actually, yeah, I'd quite like to do that because I'm furloughed, and I want to keep myself busy." So, you know.

I said, "I don't know how to make a mask." So she said, "Oh, there's this new thing called Zoom.

We can, um, we can work it out." So we worked out a way.

She'd got a way of making them, and then we tweaked that.

And, um, we started making masks, and we set up a fundraiser for the NHS.

Obviously, you know what happens next.

Um, we needed more masks.

We needed more people volunteering to sew masks.

We needed more fabric.

And so w- it then started to really snowball.

And I think the thing that really surprised me was how many people in my own area I didn't know, that I thought I knew my village really well, that sort of came out of the woodwork.

And they weren't just sewing.

They were, they were washing fabrics.