Homespun E18 | Stacy Iest Hsu

hi everyone welcome to Homespun where creativity and Community come together I am your host Misty Don and today I'm joined by Stacy East Shu who is an incredible designer for motive fabrics and she shares with us behind the scenes of her life as an artist and how quilting made her a better designer all right Stacy thank you so much for being here with me today I really really appreciate you taking the time thank you thank you for having me I'm very excited very excited well I'm so excited because I have really loved your fabric collections for quite some time but we have not had the chance to meet so it's wonderful to meet you even if it's virtually um yeah I'm I'm just excited to chat with you so it's truly my pleasure to have you join me today um and for those that maybe aren't familiar with you in your work will you just uh tell a little bit about yourself uh so I'm a textile designer for Moda and um I've been working for believe it or not for 10 years with Moda now almost 10 years which is amazing and time has flown and lots of collections have been created um it's been the best experience ever um prior to that uh I worked in more commercial design so I worked for a company called jimere which some of you guys might know out there yes I worked there and designed um illustrations for leet there and then previous to that I designed um for um a company called think and I did bedding um and kind of accessories for HomeGoods I it was like product that was placed like at Walmart and Kmart and Target um but mostly in juvenile and kids and tween was kind of my area so that was what I did prior well my real job obviously is Mom but of course and that's been for the last uh 19 years but uh now I've been able to do some work in there in between so it's been great that's awesome well and it's interesting because even all along the way it sounds like you've you've worked in textiles in some way yes um so You' you know whether you were designing for clothing or beding and and now you've moved on to designing quilting Fabrics which is really amazing which has been always the end goal like I I loved what I did before and I I learned so much and I you know when I graduated from school you always think oh I'm just gonna go right into it and I'm gonna get that first job and I'm G to be able to be a textile like a quilt in the quilting industry and it took a lot longer and I submitted several times and kind of weaved in and out but um it was all in in the right time and I learned so much prior to that and um and and just in life timing like I I was able to work out of the house because I didn't have kids and then when I started having kids then it was like well how can I try to get a job in this Arena and stay home because I didn't want to go out um and it was just all the right time and I I I even I have a 19-year-old now and a high school two high schoolers and they're always like I don't know when it's gonna happen or you know when I when I graduate from college I have to get that job right away and do what I love to do and I'm like I didn't I didn't start my dream job with Moda until I was 40 years old and I and I always tell them you just have to go through the Journey learn what you can and it's it's not your time it's it's how it takes you you know yeah absolutely I love that and I tell my kids something very similar you know my oldest is starting his senior year this year and he's feeling all this pressure to have all the right answers and having his whole life figured out and I just always remind him that's just not how it works I never would have thought when I graduated high school that I would be teaching and designing quilts um but man what a journey it's been and I'm so happy to be doing it now and so I think it's a great reminder that that path is well for some maybe it is very linear maybe they really know what they're they're you know working towards and it's it's it's a pretty straight line but for me it certainly has been the most wandering path I mean and and a lot of uh a lot of two what I tell the kids because they're like I'm never gonna use this in the real you know real world and I'm like I can't believe the skills I'm using now that I said the same thing in high school or college I'm like I'm not sure if this is GNA how am I going to use this and and it was when I started with Moda all these little thing like math I did you know quilting is all about the math and I used to sorry hate math and I I hope my kids don't hear that but it's that and public speaking um these are all things that we learned in high school or if you went to college and it's just like it might not come back right away but in that Journey it's amazing how these things have popped up and I'm like oh I remember doing that in high school or I remember doing that in college and it's yeah it's wild it's wild but it really is I I can remember my first year of college and and I in for just for to be completely transparent I only went to college for one year I I never graduated fine that's just my journey but um while I was at school I was in a it was like a speech and debate class and I took it because I was terrified of speaking in front of people and um I can think back now to that class when I was giving my first major presentation um and it was a small group I want to say there was maybe only 16 kids in the like class with me so small group and an amazing professor and I C like I had hives I was so stressed literally and like I did I I did it I finished it but I was so like shaking the entire time and now I'm like I literally talk in front of people for a living I would have thought that that girl that was literally sick you know would would come to this point and so um I have to remind myself that like we we can't put ourselves in boxes we're constantly growing and evolving and changing and things that seem really hard and impossible today be second nature down the road and uh yeah I mean it seems like we we have that in common yes absolutely I I want to Circle back though because you said that designing quilt fabric was always the end goal that was the dream and so where did that dream come from well it's my mom she collected fabric quilt fabric she loved quilt fabric quilting she would sew squares together but it wasn't like like really um uh over-the-top projects but she did a little bit of quilting but she loved collecting the fabric and so she had cabinets that were piles of quilt Fabric and I would always look at it and I'm like oh I just loved looking at them and kind of shared the same um admiration for it as my mom did and so I would always look through it and loved how you could combine the colors and the different prints and I always thought that was so neat and so I thought oh that would be neat to I well not even at that age because I was a kid I didn't even realize that could be a profession and when you talk to most people about textile design they think it magically appears on the fabric and they don't understand the process because when you say oh I'm a qu you know fabric designer they're like well what do you do do you draw on the fabric you know no yeah but any anyways that was like when I was younger and in high school I did projects like I would make collages and make pamphlet covers and not at the time realizing that they were all over Prince and and how they laid out they could have been textiles and so but you know at the time you don't know and no one's there to say oh you should be a textile designer I lived out in the middle of nowhere I was raised on a farm went to a country school and a small high school and the primary I guess the primary study there was a and a science it was all about the FFA and and and that type of thing so um you know and so I went to college and you know kind of played I always thought I was creative and I wanted to do dis art but what do you do with it you know that was always the kind of the I don't know what to do with it and um and then finally I worked at Neiman Marcus I moved to San Francisco after college worked at Neiman Marcus because I thought I'll go into the buying program and that'll be kind of creative because I'll be buying clothes for a store That'll be amazing I didn't like it but I met somebody there that lived in Berkeley that told me about a school about textile design and I was like oh okay you know we'll check it out I went to the first class and I was like this is what I want to do this is what I've been doing ever since I was young but it just wasn't realized then and so I started my first job and it was doing bedding for like Kmart and Walmart and that type of thing and when I would put up the concept ideas I would make like 40 different prints and hang them on the wall for my my design director to see and it looked like a quilt w collection and she's like I think you're doing the wrong thing here you should be doing something like this and so I investigated investigated more and um I sent a collection to Moda actually and it was when Cheryl Friedberg was there and she's like not so good but then she sent me samples and she said we like this type of idea like this is the type of work we do here okay so I think I couple years went back to the drawing board couple years later um I wasn't working as much and so I did a lot of that's when spoon flour came out of course so I um they had the contest the weekly contest and one of them was for a cut and sew panel and I'm like H we'll try this I'll make a doll sure you know so I did the doll and it was called the Amelia doll after my daughter's name and it got second place and I was like oh there's something to this and so worked with it and created more dolls for spoon flour people were buying them and I'm like how can I make a fabric collection that would go with the dolls and do this and so I started making fabric collections that would coordinate with the dolls and then finally I had little red and I was like I'm going to try this again I wrote a letter to 20 different fabric companies with wow the little red and some prints that could go with her and Moda responded back almost instantly and it was Cheryl and she said I'm on vacation in Australia but when I get back I want to get in touch with you and so those were the longest days ever waiting for her I thought well it's not gonna work out it's not GNA work out and sure enough she wrote me back and she's like we want to try and do this and we got the fabric in there and and that there that was 10 years ago that's amazing and the rest is history as they say the rest is history that is so incredible so when you first went to college were you studying design no I took I did fashion merchandising because I thought well that you know will be kind of creative yeah I but I took one class and it was like a color and design class in college and that was my favorite class and of course I got an A in it and the teacher says I usually don't give out a and I'm like I mean you should know then when you see stuff like that you're like well maybe that's what I should do but again there was that you know that doubt in the back of your mind well how can I make this a career and so right I mean I think so often you hear the that phrase starving artist right and so it can be really scary as a creative yep yep and it's changed so much with the internet I mean this is dating myself you know but it's true though we didn't have it and and so now there are and I remember talking to my mother-in-law about you know artists and she's like again starving Artisan I'm like no it's not that way anymore um because of all these companies online companies that you can sell your things I mean it's amazing the opportunities people have now and the amount of money they're making with these these uh online uh platforms absolutely and it it it's one of those things where it's time to remove that phrase and that way of thinking because the opportunity is so there for for the you know people who are willing to take it and so being willing to you know put yourself out there as a creative I think there's never been a better time to have your work abolutely be enjoyed yeah y yep and I have to say when I first started you know when I worked like at jimber and other places they always said well at 50 you kind of age out you know and the Next Generation comes in and it was funny because when I started working at Moda I was so inspired because there's so many designers that are 50 plus 40 plus that are so successful and like I told my husband I said it's been so inspiring in and hopeful for me to know that my career doesn't end at a certain age I mean oh love that promoted designers designers or and and all the design there's so many wonderful designers from other companies that are 50 plus that are just killing it out there and it's so inspiring for me to know that it's not the end you know at a certain age well and I love that you brought that up because one of the things that you know my mother-in-law Jenny has shared of is you know when we started Missouri Star she was 50 and if you would have told her that she would have had this whole career and you know business that grew one you know starting at 50 she would have never believed it and it's it's an important reminder to all of us that like there's a lot of life left and we create these sort of like milestones and roadblocks in our minds and they don't have to be there is no like perfect time to do x y and z it it it works out exactly like you said earlier when it's your time and so being willing to still you know be open to those opportunities I think is so important instead of just feeling defeated um because you didn't give up you kept sharing what you were what you were passionate about and eventually it worked out yeah yep yeah yeah I I love that so it sounds like you've been surrounded by creativity really your entire life and so can we go back maybe to your child childhood and talk about um when you really got into um just just crafts in general creativity in general right absolutely so my family I was surrounded by Crafters like my mom although she had a lot of fabric her emphasis was like crocheting she loved to crochet and do crossstitch and that type of thing um her mother was an avid crocheter and Knitter um she was my mom was born in Holland her family's from Holland and they my grandmother would crochet like the doilies like the like like doilies that were beautiful and then on my dad's side she my grandmother was an avid sewer she seed all her clothes clear into her older older age and that was all that she wore and um she knitted tons of sweaters you know so I was always always surrounded by and my aunts like my mom has uh four sisters that are all super creative and my dad has two sisters that were very creative and and and the sister-in-laws as well so I was always surrounded by getting lots of gifts from that were homemade you know um so that was inspiring so I kind of you know we lived out in the country so you just kind of play around I would sew pieces of fabric together for my Barbies like to make them little for my Barbies yes and my dolls and then um when I was in about the fifth grade I joined 4 and did sewing so that's where I started my sewing journey and um did fashion review and competed and uh was able to go to the state competition at UC Davis two years in a row and so I did a lot of sewing so that was probably let's see fifth grade to about a sophomore year in high school and then it just kind of disappeared and I would sew here and there like pillows or um you know curtains for my apartment you know that type of thing um but never really came back to it until I mean I didn't even sew a lot for my kids now that I think about it I just didn't have the time and wasn't my primary focus and then it all came back when I started with Moda again yeah and I had to learn how to quilt and that was that was a fun journey and um I I can't I have to admit I did not like quilting when I first started it because really I didn't take classes and I didn't I was just trying to figure it out on my own and the pieces weren't matching up and I wasn't sure but I have to say 10 years later I think I'm pretty good quilter now I do a lot of and I I actually at one point I was like I think I kind of enjoy this now because I get it you know and trying to and for me it was always I needed I wanted to learn how to quilt so that I could be a better designer and so that I could design what worked best and I noticed that the designers that quilted um they understood how to you know the repeats and the scale and the color and that type of thing and so I think that being able to quilt and learning how to quilt has made me a stronger designer and and I really like it like I I I like that my schedule is like I design for like a month or two for the collection and then I'm excited when that box of fabric comes and I'm like oh yes I can't wait to get you get to play yeah exactly and I do like designing the quilts too I love create you know designing those as well so it's this I just love the Rhythm the the beginning of coming up with inspiration like right before I talked to you I was working on uh Gathering up inspiration for my next collection and then the process of illustrating it all and putting it into the computer and coloring things up and then designing the quilts and then getting this the fabric yardage it's just like it's so nice you don't get you know by the time you kind of are getting wary of one step You're On To The Next Step You' moved on to something different yeah it's so much fun I just I feel so blessed I get to do what I do I it's been a dream and I I I have to pinch myself sometimes I feel so it's very obvious that you love what you do and you're passionate about it so I think you have found your calling in your in the right place which definitely shows through your work which you know that's that's what you hope for everybody that they just get to have a job that they love so that's amazing so can we talk about your design process itself do you draw by hand do you work on a computer how what does that look like so I always I always start with a sketch it's always a sketch first um I gather up like I'll go on Pinterest a lot of lately a lot of collections of just been coming from my past like I don't know if most people have noticed but um I've kind of changed my hand a little we're doing a little bit more vintage and you're going to see that in the future too and I've really been having fun and I I I'm I think about it and I'm like H it's kind of crazy that we've made this turn but looking at my path I realized I think it's because my kids are getting older I'm kind of maybe more nostalgic or just maybe just going towards more of a adult novelty type thing and so it's just been a fun Journey that way so I research or pull like um Farmstead my last my latest collection was inspired by my family and their Heritage and where they coming from Europe to the United States to start a dairy and start a farm so a lot of it comes from my past and then we look at old pictures and um go through that type of thing but I I try to spend a lot of time in research uh looking on Pinterest going shopping going into like um antique stores and that type of thing to get some ideas and then I go and I sketch and I sketch and I just sketch for a whole week and I'll go to a cafe I'll do it at home I try to change places just to kind of just see what will come out and sometimes I do like a really quick sketch first of everything like the like what am I thinking for each print and then um and then I go back and finer detail and sketch everything out and then I bring it all into the computer and color color it in or res sketch things in the computer and then um do all the color way which is the best part is when you drop the color in and it's everything and repeat so that it's print ready and it's just so exciting um I know one person asked me they're like do you um come up with a panel concept first or the collection and it's always the collection first and okay I was curious about that yeah sometimes I'll have an idea of what I kind of wanted to do with the panel um but for the most part I love love doing the collection first and then seeing how that would play with you know a panel how it all comes together yeah yeah I love that so that's kind of my process but it's uh sometimes we have to fast like Fast Forward everything if it's a tight deadline but um for the most part there's ample I'm always always thinking about the collection like there's like a million collections running through my head of like how we can do it but um it's it's always I always give Moda like five different like boards virtual boards and say well okay there's these Concepts what are you feeling and we try to make each one different from the next so it doesn't feel like we're giving them the same thing every season so sure that makes good sense I I love that do you ever get to a place where you have like a creative block has that ever that's when you say that I'm like how am I gon to make it through I don't know but uh there's been times where I was getting nervous but then I kind of like look around at things or um Moda has been so wonderful they give me lots of ideas of things to do so that's been very wonderful too because they'll be like we got a request for this what do you think you know do you want to try it and I'm like sure and I almost I almost think the more crazier the better because it forces me to get out of my head and try something completely different and that's where a lot of some of the things that I'm doing now have come from like uh what was one of the collections one of the first Collections and they're like we want you to do it kind of in a vintage way and I was like that's interesting and so it has springboarded this whole new direction of design that I've been doing lately so it's it's fun I'll I'll do so fun yeah I I I mean in school I learned how to you know watercolor and paint and all of that so I'm I'm open for anything yeah is there like a go-to thing besides you know sewing and design that you know will fill your bucket like if you are feeling depleted creatively that will just fill you back up um I travel I love toel I love to travel too it's hard to do very much but I with the kids and school and schedules and stuff but I find that we went to Europe uh before the pandemic and I wasn't even expecting you know we'll see what happens but we we were in Holland and outside of Amsterdam with the big windmills on a farm and that was my third Farm collection and I was like well we got to do this more of a European style Farm type thing yes um so travel helps and it's funny because I was I went with my son to Barnes & Noble the other day and I hadn't been out of the shopping very much lately I've been busy with things and and just walking through Barnes & Noble I like to walk through the toy section to see what the kids are playing with and what they're doing and stuff and we left and I was like Luke I'm like feel so inspired now I I said I need to get out more because sometimes I get here and I'm just like on the sewing machine you know and you just sometimes you just need to step away and get out and a fresh perspective change the view change the view and we're like 35 minutes away from San Francisco so that that's always a good place I always love going there to just see what's out there and go shopping and just take a hike over there or walk in the city streets it's so much fun I love that so much is there anything that you would kind of share with people who or maybe onest similar path or or have a similar goal of Designing Fabric or or quilt patterns or or maybe just want to work in the creative industry and aren't sure exactly what that looks like what would you tell them um or or advice that you would give them to to make that happen sure um I would say just be persistent like there's a lot of competition and I and you and I know because I always tell Jamie I'm like I've talked to her several times and she's like oh there's a lot of submissions and I know I know there's so many creatives out there and to get to be able to work at Moda or any of these Fab manufacturers there's a very small small group of people that actually make it in there um but I would say be persistent put yourself out there and keep producing like keep trying like that was for me like the spoon flow with the panel that was I just kept designing stuff and seeing what would stick like what would take um and then you're also exercising your creative muscles while you're doing it um try different hands try something that you're not comfortable with um because you never know what's going to come out of that it's it's it's amazing I love that one of the things that we started doing um and I've talked about this a few times in different episodes but when you know we were probably 10 years into Misouri star and you know where Jenny does a tutorial every Friday at the time I was doing Missouri Star live every week and quilt Snips and all these other things and we were all just feeling creatively drained and so we started we try to at least once or twice a year kind of have these creative Retreats where we go and just try something completely outside of the box complet and I have to say that has been one of the most um like Soul filling things that we've been able to do to to like keep being inspired it's like oh there's just so much opportunity out there and and it's a great reminder that that learning process that learning something new is a pivotal part of being a creative and so it is yeah it's easy to fall into that rut you know where youve you've got a system that works but you want to keep challenging yourself and learning and growing and so um I love that thought that you know don't be afraid to to step outside of your normal routine a little bit and and try something new and it sounds like you're very much on that Journey right now with your you know more nostalgic and V vintage styles that you're designing so y That's kids help you do that too kids are very good at pushing you out of your comfort zone and I mean just their activities and the things that they're interested in have brought so much to me you know it's like oh wow I never thought of it like that or I never you know imagined or meeting people through their you know their friends and families you know so it's been quite a ride I love that do your kids ever help you with designs do they kind of well I where we're at right now behind me is my kitchen and this is where I work so my desk is all along here it's a long desk my sewing machine is here my computer and um during the pandemic especially they were all here so everybody would come down at lunch time and they'd be they'd see what I'm working on and I'd get some feedback you know because it's all out there or like the fabric is out and you know my daughter will like look through it and say oh that's a good one that's you you know um and and then sometimes my youngest son I'll ask him like well what do you think do you like this one or that one and he'll you know give me some feed he's always very good with the feedback um so it's it's wonderful I think for me I think it's very important that your kids see you work see what you're doing see your fails see your successes um because it's showing them what that how to act when they work you know absolutely and to work hard so I um sometimes I'm like oh I wish I had I see some of these ladies with the dream craft room and it's beautiful and they've got it all enclosed in that room and I'm like oh it'd be so nice that this mess wouldn't be in my kitchen all the time or I have to see it all the time but at the same time I love that my kids can come down and say hi to me or talk to me I mean and my old part of it yeah yeah my oldest son is a musician and during the pandemic between his classes this was when he was in high school he'd come down and sit right next to me and play the guitar when I'm like working and it's just like I you can't have those moments anywhere else and so I just feel again blessed because I can work from home and and that they can see what I'm doing and see how hard I worked and how yeah um and then how sometimes it doesn't work out you know there's things that go sideways and problem solving and you know life they get that inside look to your real life and they can see you know like you said the effort that you put in and also the passion and then the the end result when all of those hours have have come together to create you know these beautiful collections that you design so ah what what an amazing thing how special I love that yeah ah well thank you Stacy I really really appreciate you being here and if you could just let everyone know how they can see uh maybe what your next projects are the best way to follow along with you I know you're not huge on social media but um you know where they can follow you there no hey no no no we all have our things so I I have such a hard time I try I try but it's it's just I admire those folks that can just get it out there all the time but the best place to follow me is on my Instagram that's I I can't I haven't done the Tik Tok or the YouTube or anything but uh Instagram usually I always post new collections I'll post kind of sometimes I'll post some sketches of what I'm working on um but that's the best place to catch me on and to see what's going on perfect well thank you so much Stacy and hopefully we'll be able to catch up again soon and I hope you have a great day I'll see you later okay byebye thank you