Our Dream Baby Sitter
Eons ago, my kid, Remy, drew monsters. Boxy-bodied with thick rectangular limbs, these triangular-toothed, horned creatures were impressive, benevolent, and lovable. At the time, we had a dream baby sitter, Kathryn. She loved to sew. For Remy’s birthday, she turned one of his drawings into a stuffed monster. For our daughter, Saskia, she made a dress from yellow and blue goose-print fabric, stitching a goose on a front pocket. She also made a stuffed goose because, after all, a goose dress needed accessorizing.
Kathryn imagined starting her own business. Take a kid’s drawing, like Remy’s, and she’d make the image into a 3-D snuggly. What could be better?
Remy Friends was a sweet microbusiness model, but I’m leaving out all the juice. That juice was Kathryn, she of slightly raspy voice, as if continually hoarse from all of her excitement over everything. Her energy was infectious. Our household became team Remy Friends. Each commission was cheered by our entire ragged family, with two weary parents, a teen, a tween, an art kid, and a plucky tot. Kathryn, we all agreed, was a star. During the time she and her then-partner lived upstairs, we basked under her glow.
Kathryn moved on, became a teacher. Years later, she made a wholly on-brand move, taking her PPP check to buy. . . a boatload of vintage fabric someone was offloading. Haul retrieved, she rented tents. Socially distant and masked, people perused vintage fabric on rented tables. Along with little videos of the goods for sale, she posted DIY mask-making videos, when making cloth masks was less craft project, more calling. Then, she kept finding and selling more fabric.
Turning her competence and enthusiasm toward a business model that reads more like a mission, she dedicated herself to stitching together some of the most pressing issues of our time: the climate crisis and the use of modern-day slavery for making throwaway goods. Excited about how to transform the overabundance of cloth people store in their attics, give away, or throw away, into something else, she wrote on her website: “We need to see ourselves as trash-rich.”
Building on her dream, Kathryn secured a storefront and a cozy warehouse in tiny Great Falls. The local paper described Swanson’s Fabrics, her new place, as “doubling as both a storage warehouse and a café-style gathering space.”
Located in a small town, Kathryn hoped any political differences wouldn’t matter. Instead, she focused on how her enterprise would build a stronger sense of neighborhood and connection.
Swanson’s, she explained, operates on the premise that art brings people together. People tend to agree, she explains, “that your grandmother’s quilts are beautiful, and they should be respected and saved.” It’s as good a starting point as any.
I do not sew, and odds are, I never will take it up as a hobby. Still, I might be Swanson’s Fabrics OG fangirl. Kathryn’s videos are so much fun I can’t stop watching them. They span from the inexpensive fabric the store receives to Kathryn putting on makeup as she discusses, with humor and self-reflection and concealer and colors, how she’s trying to make a business that supports her top priorities: her co-workers and community.
While her face might transform onscreen, her values remain steadfast.
With four kids spanning 12 years, we’ve had a lot of baby sitters. I’m awed by all of them — now grown adults who were emerging adults when we, as frazzled parents, knew them well and were dependent upon them.
Now they are artists, teachers, carpenters, social workers, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, art historians, filmmakers, dancers, musicians, professors, parents, poets, sales executives, and IT people. But no one except Kathryn brings me back to the cuddly monsters and geese my small humans loved, and the awe I still feel in witnessing her particular gift: to see opportunity in an unseen need.