Riot Grrrl Sewing Patterns
Attributions and Artist Statement
15 sewing patterns
Color pencil on covers
Fourteen are 5 1/2” x 8”
One is 6 1/2” x 8 1/4”
2024-2025
Riot Grrrl is a Third Wave Feminism music and art movement. It began in the mid-1980s, gaining its name and national media attention in the early 1990s. Riot Grrrl’s DIY (do-it-yourself) infrastructure allowed girls and women to create their own art and music scenes, unconstrained by the institutionalized gender roles that have long oppressed girls and women. DIY also ignored musical specialization and expertise in favor of just making music and sharing instruments (the drummer in one song might play guitar in the next, for example). Making zines, forming bands, and holding meetings, benefits, rallies, and conventions are legendary riot grrrl actions that have had lasting impact. As my mom, Lucretia Baldwin “Teka” Ward observed, the impact of riot grrrl is herstorical, with art and music as overt action.
Riot Grrrl refers to the “girl” word instead of the word “woman” because girls have the anarchic power of anger and chaos before they get sublimated into perfume packets promising perfection. Before girls are gendered into submission. And the growl in the spelling of “grrrl” indicates that rage.
There’s a sexualization of girls and youth that riot grrrl played with, maybe perhaps as a way to attract attention or maybe as a way to work out one’s own sexual process, or maybe because kneesocks, short skirts and barrettes are adorable. And it’s fun to not care if your underwear or bra straps show. My mom observed that the riot grrrl look is seductive and girlish. When it’s paired with the sound of punk - which sounds childlike and all-consuming in its clamour - the vitality reminds me of the energy of being a kid. The grit of punk is like the dirt on your skin from being outside playing.
When I joined riot grrrl Los Angeles in 1992, we riot grrrlsmade a zine. One of the riot grrrls contributed lyrics I loved. Years later, @ 1998, I ran into her at the Betsey Johnson store in the Beverly Center! What on earth were two riot grrrls doing in that joint, a fancy mall? She worked at Betsey Johnson. I was buying nail polish! I chose the Butterick pattern of Betsey Johnson because it’s riot grrrl-related and plus I really love that lavender dress.
My cousin, the hair stylist artist Echo DeVore, said “just for the riot grrrl record” one night when we discussed reasons to turn my riot grrrl mixtape zine into a book. It’s an oral history I did on cassette tapes from 2010-2021 with riot grrrls, almost all of whom I met when we were in riot grrrl during the early 1990s. Echo told me she thinks of bands, not any individual person, when she thinks of riot grrrl. I love that because it seems as though just a few famous people are always mentioned or quoted in riot grrrl discussions, but there were so many more of us, and most of us made zines and/or were in bands, too. I liked what Echo said so much that I quoted her on McCall’s sewing pattern #5120, the one with an illustration of a girl holding up a vinyl record.
I like the 1970s sewing patterns and packets so very much, I think because they have that riot grrrl vibe of DIY exploration and the look and feel of tattered romance. The clamour of glamour!
Butterick pattern 3116, Betsey Johnson of Alley Cat
5 1/2” x 8”
Pencil on paper (and I used a Guerrilla Girls eraser. Guerrilla Girls are an activist art group.)
2024
Butterick pattern 6634
5 1/2” x 8”
Pencil on paper (and I used a Guerrilla Girls eraser. Guerrilla Girls are an activist art group.)
2024
Butterick pattern 6530, Betsey Johnson of Alley Cat
5 1/2” x 8”
Pencil on paper (and I used a Guerrilla Girls eraser. Guerrilla Girls are an activist art group.)
2024
Butterick pattern 3408, John Kloss
5 1/2” x 8”
Color pencil on paper
2024
Simplicity pattern 5355
5 1/2” x 8”
Color pencil on paper
2024
Butterick pattern 3589
5 1/2” x 8”
Color pencil on paper
2024
Simplicity pattern 9372
5 1/2” x 8”
Color pencil on paper
2024
Butterick pattern 6306
5 1/2” x 8”
Color pencil on paper
2024
Butterick pattern 6658
5 1/2” x 8”
Color pencil on paper
2024
Butterick pattern 5887
5 1/2” x 8”
Color pencil on paper
2024
Butterick pattern 6040
5 1/2” x 8”
Color pencil on paper
2024
McCall's pattern 2319
5 1/2" x 8"
Color pencil on paper
2024
Butterick pattern 6377
5 1/2” x 8”
Pencil on paper
2024, 2025
Butterick pattern 6413
5 1/2” x 8”
Pencil on paper
2024, 2025
McCall’s pattern 5120
Color pencil on paper
6 1/2” x 8 1/4”
2025