Hello there, Amy here. For the last instalment of the Montreal Maker Series (in honour of our Sienna Maker Jacket), we are catching up with local hero and concert photography master Susan Moss. I met my husband 15 years ago at the local watering hole (a beloved dive bar) where Susan was a waitress at the time. Although I hardly feel like the title "waitress" did her justice. She would be carrying five pitchers, slinging popcorn and taking orders in two languages at the same time. She knew all the local's names (and which ones were trouble) and she ran that room with her generous smile and hearty laugh as her calling card. Over the years I watched her love of live music photography expand and mature until the present day, where she is THE go-to talent for every rock band that comes through town. We have a print in our home of this amazing moment she captured of a beer being thrown at Stephen Malkmus of Pavement at Osheaga Music Festival (we were at this show) and he kept playing, which was the highlight of the festival.

There is a certain amount of chutzpah one needs to elbow one's way to the front of an intense heavy metal show and focus on capturing that experience. This is where I would imagine years of working in a rowdy bar might be just the training one needs. Her photos buzz with the energy of a fight about to break out, and I suppose that is the beating heart of Rock and Roll! You can check out her portfolio here.

We snapped Susan at the MTelus Theater where she was shooting a concert later (a metal band with an actual TANK on stage) and she looks perfectly at home in this venue in her jacket! For Susan's custom Sienna Maker Jacket she needed it to be black (for those backstage shots where she needs to be an invisible Ninja)  and we also made a few other custom changes which I will get into at the end of this interview. But, without further ado let's meet Susan!

How did you break into such a competitive industry?

I've been doing photography for almost three decades. Working in a bar part time where lots of musicians and people in the industry went helped me make a lot of connections.

Your job involves late nights, crazy crowds and diva musicians. What motivates you to keep going when the going gets tough?

Working in bars was late nights! Now most of my shows are around 9pm and I shoot three songs and  I go home and work on my photos. I'm in bed by midnight (ish). I love watching the fans freak out at live shows, it's one of the most fun parts of my job. Once in a while crowds are pushy and annoying, but that depends on the band.

Being a woman in a fairly male dominated industry, do you feel like it has affected your career? Was that a barrier to entry at any point?

I don’t really think like that. But when I started, I was the only woman in the pit. Now there’s tons, which makes me happy.

Got any dishy backstage gossip? Good stories or debauched rock stars?

Once I was trying to get a photo of Nick Cave getting out of his car backstage at Osheaga and the door opened and Jack White came out instead! He wasn’t too happy when I took his photo (LOL). Then two minutes later another car pulled up and it was Nick Cave!

Who would be your dream shoot alive or dead?

DAVID BOWIE!!! TOM WAITS!!! & PRINCE!!!

Of all the maker jackets in this series, we made the most custom changes to this one. We used the Robert Kaufman Big Sur canvas in Black, which you can find here from Fabric dot com. We made Susan the mid-length View B and graded between a size 18 (from our 0-20 range) and a 22  (from 14-30 size range) on the bottom. This won't necessarily work with every pattern, but since she only needed a little extra width in her hips it was an easy adjustment.  We matched up the front and back along center front and center back and used the waist notch as a match point. We made a smooth curve between sizes and adjusted the pocket slightly. We also did a full bicep adjustment which we explained how to do here. When we asked her for modifications we could make that would help on the job, she requested a hood and thumbhole cuffs, since her work sometimes takes her outside in all kinds of weather.

Alexis tackled these hacks by omitting the Sienna collar pieces and using our Kelly Anorak hood pattern pieces instead (though you could use any hood pattern really). She also used this handy (no pun intended) tutorial for the thumbhole cuffs by Hey June Handmade.  For the hood, we measured the seam line of the neckline of the jacket between the inner match points, and adjusted the hood pattern pieces to ensure the finished neckline of the hood would fit within this seam line. After assembling the hood and lining it in a jersey fabric from our stash, she also added a rectangular facing piece of the outer fabric to the inner edge of the hood. She attached it to the jacket at the stage of construction where you would normally attach the collar.

After basting the hood in place along the neckline of the jacket, we attached the facings as per the instructions, sandwiching the hood between the jacket and facing.

When we topstitched the edges of the lapel, we sewed straight across the neckline of the jacket to secure the hood in place.

So far so good! This is a great hack since it lets you keep the shape of the lapel. You'll just want to make sure the hood is deep enough that it looks good when it's laying flat.

She used a lovely Merino wool (again from our stash) to create these thumbhole cuffs.

We sewed the sleeves as written in the instructions.

She had to narrow the two piece sleeve a wee bit in order to fit the cuff pieces to avoid having to ease in too much bulk. The cuff of the sleeve was too narrow to fit over the free arm of our machine, so we handstitched the edge of the cuff in place along the sleeve hem to secure instead of topstitching.

So cozy! The rest of the jacket came together as per the instructions and it was off to work for this jacket!

Thank you Susan, you rock (literally)! Be sure to follow her on instagram if you'd like a little rock n' roll in your feed!

(Photos by James Andrew Rosen)

Pattern details: Sienna Maker Jacket (size 18 (0-20) graded to 22 (14-30) with hood and thumbhole cuffs, Kaufman Big Sur Canvas in black)

Hi! Amy here. This instalment of the Montreal Maker Series is super special to me. Bernice Sorge is the mother of my husband's best friend. She doesn't live in Montreal, but she was the very first person I thought of when we dreamed up this series! I have attended two weddings, a few birthdays and many summer nights on Bernice's beautiful property in the Eastern Townships of Quebec (about 100kms from Montreal). I have inherited one of her wild rose bushes and been blessed to hear her amazing slam poetry on said special occasions. I always leave her with ideas percolating in my head and full of the feeling that I wouldn't mind getting older and having it all figured out like this beautiful, vibrant artist. How she maintained her creative spirit while having three young boys, and a partner who lived in Montreal at a teaching post when they moved out to the country in the late 70s, is beyond me. Or, maybe that's exactly how she learned how important it is to live your making practice and make time for your own art. Either way, I am searching for guidance in this area as I near my 40s as a mother of two young kids, and since I always find inspiration in Bernice, she was a natural fit for this interview. We made her a Sienna Maker Jacket which I hope she gets covered in paint, because like everything she touches with colour, it would only get better.

We shot these images at her art studio/church/coop printing press/school/gallery and all-around amazing space, which she stumbled on in the 80s, more or less abandoned in the woods. It was built in the late 1800's and went from a United Church to a theatre troupe to a severely tilting building all the contractors she spoke to said "not to touch with a ten foot pole". It's a good thing she didn't listen to them because there was plenty that was worth preserving in this gorgeous structure. She did the work slowly, bit by bit, enlisting those three boys summer after summer, restoring the windows, stripping back the floorboards and painting and landscaping. The space is full of light and fresh country air, but it is also filled with an unmistakable energy that vibrates with creativity. There is nothing still or dusty about Bernice's studio and that's because she is such a kinetic artist. Her works are constantly evolving and she always follows her artistic impulses whether that be in her garden, her studio or somewhere in between. I asked her a few questions to try and garner some creative wisdom and also how to figure out how to hack my life to look exactly like hers...or at least a little bit.

How has your art practice evolved over time? 

My creative process is about renewal, despair and hope, destruction and re-creation. Through this and nature that surrounds me, I am able to go on, to explore further and take on challenges. My paintings never seem to have an end - even if a painting is up against the wall, seemingly finished, I might pick it up and repaint it or tear it up and collage with it. Painting is a continual process of renewal. It is only when a work is taken away that there is no possibility of transformation.

How has living in where you do informed your art practice?

When I travel or work in other places or studios I often bring that attachment with me. It often demands to be integrated into the new place. A few years ago I was awarded a two month residency in the city of Montreal. The morning I left I packed the car and took one last stroll around my studio. I saw a shadow on the compost pile and could not resist taking photos. These photos combined with ones I had taken spontaneously on my walks around the city became the basis of a new series of digital prints.

How do your various hobbies intersect (re: gardening, seed saving, print making)? Was that a conscious decision? What aspects came first?

The idea for the botanical prints of large leaves taken from wild plants ( some domesticated perennials) happened one day when I was once again taking burdocks from my dog's fur and children's hair. I asked myself how I could get rid of some of these giant plants without using poisons or destroying the whole balance within the little ecosystem where they grew. I wondered if I could use some of them to make prints. I took one to my studio to experiment. It was quite frustrating because the leaf squished out its juice all over the paper and the press!

After weeks of trying I got a reasonable looking print and eventually developed a formula of preparing the leaves so that I could make a mould and print them to perfection. From then on I began a project of collecting wild plants, making printing plates, writing the names in Latin, French and English etc. and researching to find out if they are edible, of course.

Do you ever find yourself in an artistic funk? What do you do to get out of it? How do you find inspiration?

Surrounding the studio is a large field and a little wood. I work in the field a few times a week, sometimes with the help of friends, on a long term project to change it into an edible forest garden (permaculture). Everything is being done by hand except for the use of a small rototiller. I guess I am a part-time farmer. Often after a half-day of working with the soil I feel renewed and more creative and open. So I go inside and paint or prepare a new wild printing plate. The outside work is important in that it nourishes what I do inside. My energy is heightened and I am ready to take on anything, even a painting that needs to be taken apart, painted over, or destroyed.

You mentioned research. What form does that take and what are your jumping-off places for that?

I have kept the DNA of each plant I print, so that when wild plants are eventually transformed by genetic modification I will have the original matter for a future when the farmers will need old varieties for the survival of domestic plants. All of this is the scientist in me. I do not see a disconnect between science and art. Both use the steps of the creative process from the first decision around the quest, to the exploration and the recording of the results. For me the original prints are the data, and the source of that data, the land and environment around my special studio.

Thank you Bernice! If you'd like to discover her work, be sure to check out her website here.

Fit & Modification Notes:

For Bernice's Sienna we made a straight size 12 from our 0-20 size range and added some cuff tabs. To do so, we cut strips of fabric and folded in three of the edges at 1/4". We put a small square of interfacing in between the layers on one end, folded them in half and topstitched all around. We added buttonholes to the ends with the interfacing. We then attached them to the top sleeve before we assembled the sleeves on the wrong side of the fabric using a crossed square top stitch pattern to attach the button to. Make sure your cuff tabs ends at least 1" inside your sleeves (don't forget your hem allowance) so they don't stick out when your sleeves are down. Sew buttons on using a thick thread shanks and then assemble sleeves.

Pattern details: Sienna Maker Jacket (size 12 View B), Robert Kaufman Ventana Twill in Wine.

(Photos by James Andrew Rosen.)

What is your process for evaluating your menu? How do you choose what stays/goes/when it's time to add a new offering?

I decide what I'm making in the shower and don't take orders.  That way, I make exactly what I wish to and everything is made from a full, creative heart.

Thank you Reema!

Fit notes:

For Reema's Sienna, we removed the sleeves at her request. It gets warm in a bakery and she wanted something she could use in lieu of an apron that would still keep her cool. This is a super simple modification! All we did was assemble the jacket up until attaching the sleeves. We basted the side seams in place and tried it on her. Using pins, we folded under the raw edge of the armscye until we got a shape we liked, which meant removing width through the shoulder and a little around the front and back of the arm opening. We marked the new finished seam line, trimmed the armscye down and then finished the opening with matching bias all the way around to create a clean, durable edge.

Pattern details: Sienna Maker Jacket (size 4 without sleeves), Ventana Twill in Ice Blue.

(Photos by James Andrew Rosen.)