The Steel Unicorn

If you saw a heavily tattooed couple walking down the street, what would your first thought be?  Sewing darling children’s clothes and housewares?  Didn’t think so…proof that you can not judge a book by its cover!

Rachel is a loving wife of a “big heavily tattooed husband” and mom to three children; two girls and a boy.  She also sports body art and has the advantage of having tattoo artists as her two best friends!  Rachel has many varied interests outside of creating wonder fabric works of art which include reading; kissing vampire, werewolf, witches and fairy books top her list and swimming with her family. 

Rachel feels that her art really chose her instead of the other way around.  Her husband bought her a hand embroidery kit which she promptly used to embroider her friends tattoo flash…nothing like thinking outside the traditional box!  Rachel soon fell in love with creating with thread. 

She comes from a long line of quilters and seamstresses, whom she fought against joining ranks for most of her life, but who encouraged her to take the leap from embroidery to machine sewing.  Rachel says that her leap into sewing should have been natural, but being a bit defiant, looked like more of a forced push.  It started with her mother giving her best sewing machine for beginners to make cloth diapers.  When her job in the computer field was outsourced, she was forced to make do, reuse, or create everything that she and her family needed and she finally stopped fighting her heritage of creative, sewing women.  She says that thanks to her newly embraced talent, her family lives on repurposed hand-me-downs created just for them. 

It wasn’t such a leap from sewing for her family to starting a small business as her friends often requested items for their own children, and The Steel Unicorn was born.  The name is just another example of Rachel’s creativity and gaining inspiration from the world around her.  Her husband was building a custom chrome bike and Rachel misread the name on a box of parts as Steel Unicorn.  Thinking at the time that this name would be perfect for a metal band, she tucked it away in the back of her mind until finally using it as her business identity; after all, according to Rachel, the name was just too good to waste.

Rachel has found a very supportive community thanks to crafting and she enjoys this new found connection very much.  She does admit, though, that she often has a hard time selling what she creates instead of using it for her own children or giving them away to friends.  I’m sure that a lot of creative types can relate to this desire to give away rather than charge!

 

 

Are you ready to see what this uniquely creative mom can do?  She is pretty easy to find around the internet.  You can check out her shop on the HandmadeArtistsShop as well as on Etsy  as well as on FaceBook  .  Rachel is currently working on her own website that will be full soon http://thesteelunicorn.com/ !

Tags: buy handmade, childrens clothes, handbags, Handmade, Handmade Artists, handmade clothes, handmade handbags, Handmade Products

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