DESIGNER PROFILE
Quilter, illustrator, designer… Felice Regina is an all-round talent in our eyes! Sandi Sawa Hazlewood finds what makes her tick
All-round talent Felice Regina has mastered quilting, illustrating, designing and more! Sandi Sawa Hazlewood finds out what makes her tick
Tell us about your creative journey. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t in love with drawing. My dad loves to tell this story about my preschool assessment test. They gave me a drawing of an incomplete stick figure (missing an arm and a leg) and I was told to complete the image. I filled in the arm and the leg... and just wouldn’t stop. I drew fingers, toes, hair, a face with lipstick, ears and earrings. His favourite part was that I even drew a belly button.
Growing up, people mostly knew me as the ‘art kid.’ Even if I wasn’t drawing, I was doing some type of creative activity. When I was seven, I bought a book on hand sewing and started making little fabric disasters. By the time I graduated college with my bachelor’s degree in studio art (with a business minor), I’d dipped my feet in tons of different crafts, including crochet, beading, embroidery, bookbinding, metalworking and woodworking.
What were your first experiences with a sewing machine like?
I didn’t learn to use a sewing machine until I was 20. I had begged my mom to teach me for years to no avail, but she’d finally had enough of hemming my pants. She gave me a two-minute lesson on how to do a straight stitch. I responded by stealing her sewing machine. Within a few months, I had opened an Etsy shop selling the fleece hats and zippy pouches I was cranking out.
Post-graduation, I got a job as a product packaging designer. It was a fairly boring job, but it changed my life. One of my coworkers was Patty Sloniger, a fabric designer. I didn’t even know fabric design was a thing. I didn’t know what quilt shops were. Up until that point I had thought the fabric at Jo-Ann Fabrics was literally all there was. Meeting Patty and learning about the quilting industry made everything click into place for me. It was a way to combine my love for illustration and sewing. I made my first quilt in January 2014 and I’ve never escaped from this rabbit hole! In December 2015, I quit my day job in order to focus on growing my multi-faceted business, designing fabric, sewing patterns and illustrating. My first fabric line, Luna Sol, hit stores in fall 2016, and Caturday arrived in fall 2017.
You post your visual art journals on Instagram. What inspires you to start them and, on average, how long does it take to make one? When it comes to illustration, people love to pay the compliment, ‘You’re so talented!’ But it’s really a skill like any other. Meaning: use it or lose it.
I MADE MY FIRST QUILT IN 2014. IN 2015 I QUIT MY JOB TO FOCUS ON MY BUSINESS
During 2016 I felt like I lost it. I was so focused on sewing projects for my first fabric line, Luna Sol, and designing patterns that I spent very little time with my sketchbook. It created a negative spiral.
Every time I tried to draw,