This is a strange post to come back from a hiatus from, but it’s an important one to me.
I recently found out that a little over a month ago, we lost the Refashionista herself, Jillian Owens. I’ve mentioned her in a few earlier posts, but in case you haven’t checked out her blog yet, Jillian was the founder of Refashionista.net and the 366-day Refashion Project, the eco-fashion website that inspired me to get into refashioning and upcycling clothing a full decade ago. What I liked about her style was she was always willing to try new things, even if they didn’t always turn out right. She was known for mixing bottles of fabric dye just to see what happened, the way an artist mixes their paints to create something unique. She saw the beauty in the tired, faded, or hideous. Just look at a few of my favorites here:
Plus, while other sewing blogs evolved into “Mommy Blogs,” Jillian was always true to her origins, using an old fashioned digital camera rather than a fancy photography setup with artificial filters and make-believe perfection. If you followed her, she was always *doing* something, whether it was going to local art galleries and movie premieres, to drinks or game nights with friends.
One of the things that always blew my mind was she would work a full day at the office, come home and whip something out, and then attend an event that very night! I will never know where she got the energy. How she was able to make something nearly everyday was incredible to me.
She seemed to really enjoy life. I’ve only ever spoken with her a handful of times virtually, but I had always hoped I’d get to meet her in person. Unfortunately, Ovarian Cancer had other plans. I can only imagine how much more creativity she had in her.
It’s getting really hard to keep writing about her (I’m not crying, you’re crying), so I will just ask that you check out her site here so that her inspiration can live on: https://refashionista.net/
Tell your friends you love them,
~Madeleine
Moonflower DIY 