I don’t know about you, but when I’m concentrating on sewing, I go completely silent. Behind the machine in Cama’i’s qaspeq-making class, holed up in Bethel’s high school art room with thread and fabric piled around me, I hardly make a peep.
So it’s a good thing instructor Nikki Corbett is a bit more of an enthusiastic sewer.
“Make the goose look really nice.” Corbett makes a gooseneck shape with her hand. We’ll trace our own hands like this to make the qaspeq hood. “Don't let your goose be like this.” She demonstrates how a limp gooseneck will account for a less-than-desirable hood.
The Southwest Alaska Arts Group, which organizes the festival, helped bring the class to Cama’i three years ago. It’s sponsored by the Alaska Native Heritage Center, and is free to attend for its 10 participants. It’s become a staple on the festival's roster of cultural workshops that complement the lineup of performances on the main stage.
Corbett leads sewing workshops around the state and beyond under her business Sew Yup’ik. She grew up here in Bethel and says Cama’i feels like a flashback to running around the school as a kid during festival weekend.
“I find myself sitting on the floor in the front, like I was when I was a kid,” Corbett said. “And usually, as you're a kid, you're like sitting on, you know, like you're at the stage. And so now as an adult, I still do the same thing, and I find myself up there.”
A personal pattern
In the class, Corbett shows us how to make our patterns based on our own measurements. Sometimes that includes using the width of our thumbs, or the curve of our wrist. We measure the space between our jaw and collarbones with our fingers to give the width of the qaspeq’s neck hole.
Corbett says the approach has one foot in the traditional way of qaspeq making, where you would use the flat of your hands and fists to measure across your body.
“But really the like, pro style seamstresses, they will look at you and then they will make you one – they already know,” Corbett explained.
Qaspeqs are nearly always handmade. They are the opposite of fast fashion, and are often deeply personal. As I ask Cama’i attendees about their qaspeq, they can tell me the first and last name of who made theirs.
“It's something that is personal to you, but also it's not something that should be commercialized, because it is so precious,” Corbett said. “The qaspeq that I'm wearing is one that one of my grandmothers made.”
Corbett said the class is about making the garment, but also about the cultural experience.
“The thing that I found really healing for me was finding my culture and sewing and hand sewing and all of those things,” Corbett said. “I didn't know any of this, and so just being able to learn it and being comfortable with that was so healing.”
She says she never thought her sewing business would take her to the places it would.
“I always say, if there's something you want to do, just do it. You can't wait for somebody to come and hold your hand and show you. If you do that, you're going to be waiting forever, and you're going to make mistakes and you're going to mess up,” Corbett said. “So you need to start somewhere, and you have to be okay with that.”
A fashion show
There’s a lot of cultural variation too when it comes to qaspeqs across Arctic and subarctic communities.
But some of those differences show up even within the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
“You can really tell, though, which areas the qaspeqs are made from,” Corbett said. “So a lot of Hawaiian prints are made [by] Mekoryuk people.”
Corbett explains how at Cama’i, where nearly everyone is sporting some form of the garment, you can sometimes look at a qaspeq and guess where it might be from.
“You'll see St Lawrence island, they have a thicker trim on the bottom.”
In the workshop, we help each other measure, cut, and sew our garments together.
The Bethel high school art room is a revolving door over the three-day workshop. Visitors stop in to say hello and inspect our handiwork. Chances are, they’ve made a qaspeq themselves at some point. A soft spoken Elder leans over my sewing machine and tells me my hood is beautiful. I am undone.
I added some inches to my waist to make a flouncy pink floral qaspeq with a skirt. I’ve barely have time to trim the threads before it’s time for a fashion show.
In Cama’i tradition, people of all ages step up from the audience and show off their handmade attire on stage in a qaspeq parade. Then, Corbett introduces our little group. We smile and wave, like quiet children of a very proud parent.
“They all took their own measurements,” Corbett boasts. “They subtracted, added, and divided this weekend.”
Elizabeth’s Betz’s qaspeq has a multi-colored floral background with a green pocket.
“It was fun to be with everybody up there,” she said, though she admits that it was a little bit intimidating.
Betz says she’s made qaspeqs from patterns before, but over the past few Cama’i festivals, she’s peeked her head into Corbett’s class and been curious.
“I've always wanted to learn how to do it, you know, Nikki's way. Just, you know, measure and figure it out,” Betz said. “I like that.”
“Nikki’s way” is taught with her own set of Corbett-isms, things she likes to say to guide us along. My favorite one comes out when we all take a group picture, proudly wearing our new qaspeqs beside the festival sign.
“Say ‘Quyana Chuck Norris,'” Corbett instructs. We all chirp back. “Quyana Chuck Norris.”
My qaspeq is my very first one, and it’s been exciting to debut it watching performances from the bleachers of Cama’i. With qaspeqs, like a first catch, Corbett says it’s tradition to give it away. So if you know of anyone 5 foot, 10 inches with very long arms, let me know — I’ll be happy to pass it along.
