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It is a great pleasure to introduce you to my dear friend and professional crafting inspiration, Erin Gilday. Folks here in Eugene may be familiar with her business, The Patchwork Underground, from the Eugene Saturday Market and Holiday Market, and I know some of my readers also follow her blog. Not only is Erin an amazing craftswoman, seamstress, and freelance writer (check out her articles in the new Stitch Magazine!), but she is owner and co-creator of Luna, the house bus. After carrying and housing Erin and her partner Julia for over two years, Luna has arrived at their house in Oregon City, the end of the Oregon Trail.
So, here it is folks. An interview with one of the craftiest ladies of them all, and the story of her bus.
1. Tell us about building Luna, your bus. What were your inspirations? When did you and Julia decide you were going to do it?
I always loved the Boxcar Children and dollhouses and clubhouses growing up. I really think that's what started it. When I was in high school, I used to talk about buying a party bus. Then when my partner, Julia, and I were graduating college all we knew was that we wanted to be together. Other than that, we really had no plan. All through school I was in my head all the time and never working with my hands. I really missed that connection so I just started saying that I wanted to make things again. Then we found this book called Some Turtles Have Nice Shells. When people asked us what we were doing after graduation, we just pointed at the book! I started drawing floor plans and that was it. We were doing it. There was an unstoppable energy to it, we just said it too many times to not do it at that point.
How did it go?
Building it was crazy hard for us because we never built anything before. I had sewn plenty of things and done a lot of hot gluing but never any real construction. I didn't even know what a 2x4 was when we started and I was scared of drills! My ignorance was so sad in retrospect. I really think it's criminal to raise a kid without teaching them basic skills like that. We had a lot of supportive friends cheering us on at the time but we also had plenty of doubters. I'm really glad we decided to build our bus because it taught me how to teach myself how to do just about anything worth doing. We almost gave up a bunch of times during the process (and the intense group project-ness of it almost ended our relationship at a couple points!) but I'm really proud that we just kept going.
Would you do anything differently in retrospect?
Oh yeah, tons of stuff. I can't even list it all here!
2. Describe your sustainable and eco-friendly bus building practices.
We tried to be as environmentally friendly as possible given our budget. We put solar panels on top and used a lot of recycled things from Bring recycling for the interior. The insulation we used is made of recycled blue jeans. We used a ton of Safe Coat products - their metal primer, their caulk. We were building our bus *right* before the whole eco-building product thing went huge. Right as we were finishing, the specialty stuff we were mail ordering or driving to the next county to get started to be available at Home Depot. People started to understand us when we said low VOC. We witnessed the change just as we finished our project; it was pretty funny.
3. Tell us about your adventures and travels in the bus and the places you lived in it.
Well, we were very focused on making the bus into a home so we put all our money into habitability first. Circumstances made it so that we were never able to invest in the veggie conversion so that we could power the diesel engine with used veggie oil. In terms of miles, we didn't get very far in the bus at all. We made a 2-week trip down to CA when we went to live in the Santa Cruz mountains for a while. We also stayed in Santa Rosa for a bit at my mom's house. We built the bus in Eugene and lived in it there for a while and then eventually we moved to Portland's Alberta Arts District. Then just a few weeks ago we actually moved out of the bus after living in it for 2+ years. We rented a bungalow in Oregon City on 1/3 of an acre with plenty of parking. We're hoping to save up and finally get that veggie conversion done so that we can take the bus on road trips like we always wanted to. Even after all this time, it's just so much fun to drive!
4. How has being an urban bus pioneer shaped your crafting career?
Well, I think that all my craftiness comes from the same impulse. It's political, its personal, it's preference. It's a choice but it's also a natural way of being. It's resistance to specialization and "experts"; it's based on the idea that if you can't make it or fix it or improve it yourself then maybe you don't need it. You can also comfortably extend this concept to communities - if someone in your community can't make it or trade it or whatever then maybe you don't need it. It's the inverse of corporate consumerism where you think you need EVERYTHING and you know how to make nothing.
5. Tell us about Patchwork Underground and your freelance writing.
Patchwork Underground is the name I gave my business back when I was making custom wearable art - mostly patchwork and applique one-of-a-kind designs. It stuck. I transitioned more into design and writing work last year, writing sewing patterns for Threads, Sew News and Stitch magazines. Right now I'm working on a patchwork book tentatively called Stripped Down Patchwork for Leisure Arts and I have a few more magazine articles due out this spring. I have dreams of starting my own pattern line but that is a whole different ballgame.
On the homefront, my eyes have been set on real property, not rolling property. I want a place that I own where I can be in community, raise children, eat food and hang out with animals in a reasonably sustainable way. I definitely want to convert my bus to veggie oil but I don't see myself pouring a ton more energy into any other element of that project that this time.
On the professional level, my #1 top secret aspiration is to write top 40 country music and retire at 30. Failing that (or perhaps in addition to that) I see myself growing my business into a self-sustaining crafting empire. I want to continue to move away from production work and towards design stuff. I see more articles, more books, more patterns. I would love to expand into fabric design. Ultimately, I would love some type of opportunity to work with other creative folks on a common vision. I have also been fantasizing about starting my own pattern publishing company where I can write some patterns but I can also contract with other designers to publish, package and promote their patterns for them.
And, of course, every old lady (or old lady wannabe) wants her own quilt shop.
For more info on the adventures of this amazing house bus, the story of how it was built, and some bus building tutorials, visit Building Luna and read through the blog archives. For any of you who have ever wanted to create a house on wheels, this is a must see.
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