MADE WITH LOVE
craftzine.com/06/kopacz
BY HANNAH
CRAFTER
B Y JENN Y RYAN
Hannah Kopacz’ world includes frisky gnomes, squirrel brooches,
and a Cuckoo Cabin full of enchanted craftiness.
Upon visiting the website of Hannah Kopacz,
madewithlovebyhannah.com, you might
assume she lives a fairy-tale existence in an
Alpine cottage somewhere, crafting the hours away
with a songbird on her shoulder in a garden full of
toadstools. You’re not too far off the mark, only
swap the songbird for three cats, two fish, and a
grumpy bunny named Bucky.
Her garden does feature toadstools, but they’re
made of spray-painted concrete, and her cottage
is a charmingly decorated shack she uses as a
screen-printing studio. Also, she’s based in sunny
Los Angeles.
Kopacz got her start in sewing by making a terry-cloth bathrobe (complete with pompom fringe!) at
age 6, and spent her teen years restyling vintage
finds à la Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink. She then
signed up for a high school silk-screening class as
a way to meet cute punk boys, but discovered that
she actually liked it — so much so that she ended
up working in a screen-printing shop after graduation.
A customer offered her a job with his wholesale
import clothing business, and by her mid-20s she
was running her own clothing line. This was pre-internet, which made it a lot harder to earn a living
as an independent designer.
She eventually moved cross-country from
Massachusetts to L.A. and took a job working for
a misses clothing line doing textile design for the
mass market — think glittery snowman sweatshirts
and the like. Despite the cornball imagery she
often found herself working on, the job gave her an
excellent education in designing graphics and patterns, which she relished after spending a couple of
short-lived semesters at Massachusetts College of
Art and Design (MassArt) and Fashion Institute of
Technology (FIT).
“School was not for me,” Kopacz admits. “I just
like to take a class here and there if I want to learn
something hands-on that I can’t learn from reading
a book … like welding.”
Fortunately, once the urge to strike out on her
own came over Kopacz yet again (and the web
orders started rolling in), her employers allowed
her to reduce her hours bit-by-bit until she was
eventually working for herself.
Something that sets Hannah’s clothing apart is
that she really and truly has a hand in every step of
the process. She designs the folksy-sweet patterns
herself, screen-prints (and often hand-dyes) the
fabrics in her Cuckoo Cabin, then stitches up the
skirts, dresses, and tops that have made her line
synonymous with crafty cuteness. This attention
to detail is apparent when you wear a piece of her
clothing, but Kopacz herself admits it’s a bit of a
stumbling block when it comes to growing her business — a concern many ambitious crafters share.
“I want to stay independent and handmade,” she
explains, “but I have a problem with wanting to do
everything myself. Not just business-wise, but also
fixing the car, working on the yard, you name it.
That’s my biggest problem right now: figuring out
Photography by Robyn Twomey
