I’ve struggled to find a term that I like when
it comes to telling people that I sew. The obvious word is sewer, which is fine when
spoken but can create problems when written. Unless you add a hyphen (sew-er)
you run the risk of readers thinking you are an artificial watercourse. Seamstress or needlewoman is rather dated and sewist just doesn’t appeal to me. However, recently I have
come across a couple of new terms that I hope will gain in popularity.
The first term is sewintist, a contraction of sewing
scientist, which I found on the Another Sewing Scientist blog. Looking at the map
that Vicki has created, there seem to be a lot of sewing scientists out there. The
second term I came across the other day is sewcialist (a combination of
sewing and social), described by Rachel on her House of Pinheiro blog as “those
who enjoy sewing & interacting with other creatives about sewing on social
media” (a competition is currently running
to come up with a logo to represent their community and full details can be
found here).
Whilst both terms could apply to me, I feel my science
skills are stronger than my social media skills and I’ve chosen to describe
myself as a sewintist. Try as I might, my scientific training always creeps
into my sewing - only the other day I found myself thinking of all the
variables that prevent me from sewing a perfect ¼” seam.
So after waiting ages for a new noun to arrive, two come
along at once. Do either of these apply
to you or have you got your own favourite term?
I love Sewcialist!
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