We recently connected with Ash Frost and have shared our conversation below.

Ash, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I’ve always been obsessed with Pokemon, so I knew I wanted to do something related to that. When a customer came to me to commission a Poro kigurumi from League of Legends, I had so much fun that I wanted to see if I could do the same with Pokemon. So I reached out to my friends to see if anyone would be interested in having me make Pokemon onesies. I very quickly had a handful of commissions, which I then turned to my business page and asked if anyone else wanted them as well and it’s all history from there. Seven years later and 9 generations of Pokemon, and I’ve crossed off over 600 Pokemon (there’s over 1000 now!) and am always looking to cross off even more! I even expanded to making loaf plushies, and making amigurumi (Crochet plushies) so that folks who may not have the know-how to make their own patterns can still have the ability to make their own amigurumi! Getting to connect with others over their favorite Pokemon is honestly the best feeling and such a fun way to make friends.

Ash, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I come from a family of Seamstresses, where I learned to sew around the age of 5. I’m almost 30 now and have moved up from sewing barbie clothes to cosplays and kigurumis/onesies. I wanted to be a linguist professionally and in the meantime, I took cosplay commissions from folks to pay the bills and realized one day, completely out of the blue, that I was doing what I wanted to. While the hours are long and hard sometimes, I enjoy being able to create and see the joy on people’s faces when they open their packages and send me photos of them in their purchases!

I don’t make them very often now, but I started out by making cosplays for other folks, which evolved into making plushies, then kigurumis/onesies, and that has very quickly become my best seller! I even branched into crochet and make amigurumi and patterns for folks who may not have the skill set or patience to make their own patterns. One of my ultimate goals is making one of every Pokemon in Kigurumi, Amigurumi, and loaf form!

As far as my kigurumis, I wholeheartedly believe that everyone who wants to wear one, should be able to wear one! Even if you’re a bigger or taller person, that shouldn’t keep you from being comfortable and warm. I take great pride in being able to accommodate for height, size, as well as fabric textures for those who have sensory issues. All I need is a message asking about it and I’m more than happy to work with people to see how we can best address the situation.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I come from a less than supportive household, where I was told that being an artist meant I was to expect to never make any money until after I died. My parents expected me to go on to become a lawyer or a doctor in order to provide for them, and while I am very good at arguing and a deeply caring person, the law and medical fields just weren’t for me. I decided to take German while in high school, and discovered I had a knack for learning languages. To this point, I’m fluent in English and German, and have had quite a fun time learning Russian, Vietnamese, and Japanese. My father told me I was “too strong-willed” and tried to ship me off to the military. While I am indeed strong-willed, the military is definitely not the place for me either. My father wanted me to become a linguist so that I would be able to get out of their house, but decided they couldn’t wait for the next bus to boot camp and kicked me out in a drunken rage four days later. They left me homeless with only the clothes I had with me for that weekend, as I was at an anime convention, that meant I had a Doctor Who cosplay, Hetalia cosplay, and a couple changes of underwear.

I basically had to learn how to be an adult, quick, fast, and in a hurry. I didn’t have my driver’s license or even a state I.D., so it was difficult for me to get a job at first. Thankfully, I had some friends who were able to help me get my stuff in order before I starved in the streets. I took on a series of odd jobs, including being a tutor, working retail, and cleaning houses. I dealt with my demons and moved on from working retail to something that makes me happy: sewing. Most of my first pieces were handsewn as I couldn’t afford a sewing machine. A wonderful friend of mine, Armand, has such a sweet mother who heard that I wanted to sew and gave me an old sewing machine of hers until I could buy my own. I worked and had a lot of help from friends until I was able to grow my internet presence to over 20k followers across all my platforms and I’m so very thankful for everyone who has helped me on this journey. There’s too many folks to list, or else I would!

The person I am most thankful for is my wonderful fiance who supports me completely and allows me to run wild with my whims. He’s always the first person to say I should follow my heart with my projects and helps making it possible by running and grabbing some of the things I need or helping me organize my life a little better. I have many other friends who are also always so hype for all my projects, including Hammy who asks me every week at DnD what I’m working on that night!

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

To be quite honest, sharing is the easiest thing you can do to support an artist. Unfortunately, social media is the backbone of any artist’s portfolio and it takes a lot of work to create posts/videos/content and across multiple websites, so sharing it, even if it’s only to a couple friends is extremely helpful.

Another thing we as a society need to unlearn is being a jerk. Being mean does nothing to help the artist, and can even make them stop creating. It’s super easy to just scroll past without saying anything, but everyone has this mentality lately that their opinion is of the utmost importance and it really isn’t. The golden rule of “Do unto others as you would have done unto you” is something that plays in my mind constantly, and I feel people have forgotten. It’s so easy to bully, but it’s also really cool and easy to just say something nice, even if it’s small. “Cute!” or “I like ‘x’ about this” is honestly such a quick comment, but makes such a huge impact on artists. If you have nothing nice or constructive to say, it’s okay to scroll on without saying anything.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.seifersstitches.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/Seifernoir
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/SeiferNoir
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLRDF5KYDpqHN1_jpbs8ocg
• Other: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@seifernoir Linktree: linktr.ee/SeiferNoir Ko-fi: www.ko-fi.com/seifernoir

Image Credits
Photos by myself or Tolia Jarke (fiance)