About Me

CLICK HERE TO GO TO MY WEBSITE

Hello! I'm Chelsea and I am the owner/designer of Pink Fig Design. I am a work at home mom with 4 kids. I have been married for 17 years to my one true love who has just started his own Chiropractic business at the young age of 41. He's a genius and an absolute sweetheart. I love him. Can you tell?

So, how did I get started in the pattern/fabric design world? Actually, there is a story behind this that I think is worth telling. 

For the first 19-20 years of my life I was not creative at all. In fact I was an athlete! I played competitive tennis since the age of 8 and spent my time traveling the country with my family and friends playing in regional and national tournaments. When I was 17 I attended BYU in Provo Utah and had the opportunity of playing on their tennis team for 1 semester. Why only 1? Well, there are many reasons; money, love, marriage, and a baby! To name a few. 

 I met my husband during my first year of school and I was married during my second year. When we were first married, my husband and I moved into Hartman's aunt Lila Tueller's basement and a spark went off in my brain! Lila's house was full of the most beautiful things! She had made most of things that adorned her walls and covered her furniture. I asked her where she got all of her cute bedding and pillows and when she said she had made them, I almost died! I had no idea people could make such cute things. I thought they all came from Pier 1 imports or the Pottery Barn. SO, I decided to take a class at BYU to learn how to sew. My mother in law and all of her sisters including Lila and Lucy  are incredible seamstresses so I had a lot of inspiration! In that class I was required to make a skirt and a shirt from a pattern. I got a B and I absolutely hated sewing clothes from a pattern, but I did like sewing. So I decided to start out by making all of my own bedding, curtains, and pillows instead. After about a year I got pretty good at it and people started hiring me for jobs.

I did interior design and worked as a seamstress for Down East Outfitters repairing clothing for about 7 years. When I had my first daughter at the age of 25 a whole new creative side was born! At first I started out by making headbands and jewelry for her. Then one day on ebay while looking for cute headbands to buy I happened upon the Ebay boutique community! WOW! I was hooked and decided to give it a try! It was so much fun sewing for my daughter and sewing for others who liked my creations, that I decided to revisit sewing clothes from patterns and eventually started drafting my own.  Still, it was a TON of work to sew for other people and in the end I think I made somewhere around $1 an hour or less. True story. 

In the summer of 2007 I decided I wanted to open a on-line fabric shop and Lila was thinking about trying her hand at fabric design. So we headed off to the Fall Quilt Market in Houston and another spark went off. I had no idea there were so many Indie pattern designers out there! Lila was picked up by Moda and she convinced me that I needed to make my children's clothing designs into patterns. Honestly, I was terrified at the idea. Creating something in my own little sewing room for one of my daughters or for ebay was one thing, but trying to explain my crazy ideas and methods to someone else is another. I prayed about and felt it was the right thing to do. Little did I know in about 10 months we were going to pack up our lives and head off to Chiropractic School! It was a huge risk and investment for me to start my pattern business. The hours it took me to get my first line of patterns off and the cost was enormous and came at a time when we needed to save all of our money. Luckily I had a little Angel helping me - Kay Whit! She is a pattern making wizard:)  Without her there is no possible way I could have pulled it off.

So here I am! It's been over 5 years since I started and I have a collection of 30+ patterns for Pink Fig, plus several more with McCalls. I've done 2 fabric lines with Henry Glass Fabrics, some magazine exclusives, and I've accumulated a few more wrinkles and gray hair than I would like to admit. I travel to quilt market's every six months with my best friends and aunt's Lila and Lucy Morey who are both fabric designers over at Riley Blake Designs. 

It's been a wild ride, but well worth it. 

Thanks for checking in to find out more about me. If you any other questions email me! I would love to hear from you. 

pinkfigdesign@gmail.com