Handmade Store: Times Lost Art

The Road to Fashion

Love creates all things...

I stumbled into fashion entirely by accident. There was no "Ah Ha" moment where I said this is what I want to do for a living, no growing up with a shoe or purse addiction, no need to have brand name clothes or continually sketch the newest trending designs in my notebook. It was a lot more basic than that.

As a young twenty something, I knew that I wanted to start my own business - that was it. I had no plan, no idea what I wanted to sell or what my business should be called but like many modern day entrepreneurs I decided it would be a good idea to open an Etsy shop. I took the first step down the road that day and I didn't even realize it.

Now when you've never run a business before you learn quite quickly that it is not as easy as it looks even with Etsy's cheat sheets. Setting up shop took quite a bit longer than I expected partially because I didn't have a name for my company and partially because I had no products to sell. This probably wasn't the best way to start off being a business owner but that's kind of what happens when you decide to walk in blind... you stumble.

I stumbled quite a lot. I think I spent more time catching myself from falling than I actually did building a business. In the beginning Times Lost Art or "TLA" as I like to refer to it now was more of a daydream while I was working at my "real" job than anything else. Case and point, I came up with the name for my business one day at work while I was washing my hands at the bathroom sink. Really inspirational stuff going on there, I mean REALLY!

I was big into cross-stitching and embroidery back then so that's what I decided to start making to sell in my Etsy shop. BIG MISTAKE! Anyone who has done any kind of embroidery can tell you first hand that it is extremely time consuming and you will never, ever, I REPEAT, never, ever be able to sell your embroidery for a price suitable enough to make up for the time you spent creating the piece itself.

And so I went on for a few years drifting in and out of the idea of starting my own business. My failures continually outweighing my successes. I was running out of drive and ambition and slowly but surely falling into the trap of living an ordinary, creativeless existence (if that is even a word).

My artwork and designs were at a standstill, I was bored of spending so many hours cross-stitching even though I had become quite good at it. It was at that point that I decided to turn my attention to a newer hobby, one that didn't take quite as much focus and was quicker to execute... knitting.

I had taught myself how to knit a couple of years prior by watching YouTube videos of all things. (FYI - New Stitch A Day is an amazing website with numerous tutorial videos that I still reference all the time. I find them extremely easy to follow especially if you are a beginner knitter.) I found that I enjoy knitting very much. It is calming and relaxing and at the same time rewarding because you get to make something from literally nothing. You are essentially tying knots in a skein of yarn to turn into a garment. When you think of it in such layman's terms it really puts a new perspective on something that up until a few years ago I, myself, never considered an art form.

It wasn't until after my son was born, however, that I got this crazy idea to take that art form and start designing my own patterns. Up until that point it had never occurred to me to design my own, I had just been contented enough to follow someone else's knitting pattern. Once I had my baby, however, I had someone to make things for and the drive and ambition I had thought I'd lost came back in full force.

My very first design was created shortly after Halloween 2017. My son and I are avid Batman fans but do you think I could find a bat toque? I looked everywhere in town and nothing. For it being Halloween where bats and ghosts and pumpkins are supposed to be abundant I was sorely disappointed. I had never made a toque before let alone used more than one colour of yarn at a time. Knitting in the round was something new to me as well but I was persistent. After about the third go around I finally managed to hammer out a basic design that was wearable. At this point my then 8 month old was so over trying on hats that he would pout every time I came near him with one.

Being able to make something for him was exactly the inspiration I needed because shortly after that nine more baby toque designs followed. I finally had a clear vision of what Times Lost Art was supposed to be. It wasn't the same vision I'd had when I began and for that I am thankful. I followed the road to fashion not by choice but by love, the love I had for my little "Gremlin". Now it was time to take that love and build a brand.

Gabrielle Vansteelandt

Times Lost Art