KSHB 41 reporter Caroline Hogan covers development across the Kansas City area. Share your story idea with Caroline.
The common thread in Amy Barickman's style?
Sewing.
It's evident in everything from her jewelry to her jeans.
The Prairie Village designer is all about repurposing and reinventing. She started her journey as an entrepreneur sewing teddy bears at a young age.
Now, Barickman sell courses and books on sewing and needle art.
Barickman recently collaborated with a local textiles brand, Colonial Patterns, to create panels and patterns based on her vintage quilt collection.
It's called Treasured Threadz.
Barickman's love for sewing is deeper than just colors and textiles. She said it's about honoring what she calls our "sewing sisters."
"My muse is Mary Brooks Picken, and she was the founder of the Women’s Institute in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and she’s from Kansas City," Barickman said. "One thing that I loved about that story was just how sewing, you know, whether it be for pleasure or profit, brought so much joy to women."
Barickman hopes she can continue to help spread that joy, but the textile industry is a hard place to be right now.
Joann, a fabric and crafting retailer, recently closed its stores across the nation.
While Barickman said Joann's closing is concerning, it also opens up opportunities for other independently owned businesses.
"When I spoke with Patty over at KC Maker’s Studio the other day, she had said they’d had a great Saturday in sales, and that almost every other person had not been in her store before," Barickman said. "Because they didn’t probably have the Joann’s store to shop at anymore."
The self-proclaimed "solo-preneur" is not slowing down. She has more products with Colonial Patterns coming out in June.
Barickman hopes her textiles can live on and have many new lives like the vintage quilts she collects.
"I feel like the next few years there’s gonna be really good opportunity," Barickman said.
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