Sobre mi

It was always inside me, since I was very little I had the need to create things with my hands. I started with cross stitch which was the work that my mother used to do. I remember when I was 8 years old she bought me a kit for children to make a bambi.

Then sewing followed. My grandmother Sagrario lived surrounded by fabric, needles and thread. Whenever I went to her house she had a project on her hands. I remember her sewing box, the lamp that illuminated her work and how she would show me the little clothes she sewed for the third world, in addition to making all kinds of alterations for us. She taught me how to use the old-fashioned sewing machine, the ones that worked with the foot and without electricity. She always told me how she had learned pattern making by correspondence in installments and for a few weeks I was learning with her. She sewed until her hands prevented her from doing so until she was 80 and many years old.

When I was at the university, after an intense search, I went to learn sewing and pattern making with Virginia Garro in the old part of Pamplona. In the atelier I escaped from the numbers and formulas of the engineering career and enjoyed each learning and stitch. My first great work was the dress for my bachelor’s degree.

On the way to the atelier, I used to pass by the wool store of “La Chica de las Lanas” and I was always itching to pick up the needles and wool. But I was focused on pattern making and with the degree I couldn’t cover everything.

I don’t know at what point it was exactly when I decided to give up sewing and take up needles for good. I always thought that knitting, being a very portable work, would make it easier for me to take it with me wherever I wanted to go and move forward. On the contrary, sewing required a cutting table and a sewing machine, for which I needed an exclusive time of dedication. I knit a lot in “dead” times, on the way in any means of transport, in waiting rooms, while watching TV (I don’t think I can just watch it).

With the birth of my two daughters, Zoe and Nora, the knitting world has taken on a whole new facet. Their little bodies are growing very quickly and so are their clothing needs. On the other hand, as time goes by, their tastes for colors, shapes and patterns become more and more evident. That is why now also a great part of my designs and fabric creations are for them.

I like to involve them also in the creation phase of the garment, to see what color, garment they might like. There is nothing more disappointing, than making a knitted garment that you like and your daughter doesn’t even want to see it. They are undoubtedly my great inspiration to also create garments with which they can interact and also deploy their imagination.

The Ileradebu project was born in 2021, year in which I start with my own garment designs, while I continue to expand my technical knowledge in garment pattern making, pattern drafting etc.