Bozeman Batiks: Julie's way of surviving the pandemic!
I'm Julie Seitel. My main professional gig is lighting design and scenic design for theatrical productions. I've always had a fondness for the zen-ness of working on art and/or craft projects in my off time. When the pandemic came along and shut down theaters across the world for more than a year, and we were mostly trapped in our homes, I found community in the sewing groups online. (It took a global pandemic to make me finally join Facebook.)
I spent the first year of the pandemic sewing gorgeous, comfortable, customizable face masks out of high quality batik quilting cotton. When the supply chains caught up and you could buy N95s and KF94s again, sales of handmade cotton masks dropped off and I changed my focus to making custom handbags.
The lights are on again in theaters and I'm back to designing lighting and scenery most of the time, but I tumbled pretty far down the rabbit hole with bag-making and I still do it as a zen pursuit in between theater gigs.
My original design for the Julicita Rainbow Crossbody is regularly taught in classes at sewing expos by the amazing Rae Imdieke of Emporium Threads, who was one of my beta testers for the pattern and has created variations out of all kinds of materials beyond batik cotton. Check her out at www.emporiumthreads.com.
