Lisa Calle: Tending Moda's Bake Shop

Ever wonder who's minding the shop? Meet Lisa Calle, the editor of the Moda Bake Shop Blog.

Lisa Calle signed up for sewing classes when she moved to Dallas, Texas, and was immediately hypnotized by fabric. “I loved it and soon had a stash, but I knew I couldn’t use it all making clutches and home dec items,” she says. In an effort to reduce her stockpile, she stitched a quilt as a gift for her mom. That was more than three years ago and since then she’s stitched quilts almost exclusively.

“I like everything about quilts, from picking out fabric to binding,” says Lisa, a former technical writer and the mother of a 9-month-old son. She especially likes combining her stash fabric with Moda precuts. “I love the look you get when you mix a single line with other fabrics,” she says. “I enjoy mixing bright, modern fabrics with older, reproduction textiles.”

Floating Blocks

Since May, Lisa’s served as the editor of the Moda Bake Shop blog. She describes herself as the quintessential Bake Shop reader. “It was one of the first blogs I started following in 2009,” she says. “I was a new sewer and loved the tutorials by experienced ‘Chefs’ and the tips they included in their recipes.” Lisa now spends her days sorting through Bake Shop submissions—she gets about 20 per week—and helping Bake Shop Chefs edit their posts. “Because the Chefs are from different parts of the country and world we have lots of variety and stay on trend,” she says. She also works behind the scenes as Oda May (that's pig Latin for Moda), answering reader’s questions like “What should I take to a quilting retreat?” and “How do I locate a hard-to-find charm pack?”

Arcadia Modern Baby

Big plans are ahead for the blog. Currently there’s a “Show Us Your Stash” party, combined with a tour of Moda Bake Shop Chefs' studios. In September, in honor of National Sewing Month, Lisa’s planning a rotary cutter rating system for Bake Shop projects. Those labeled with one rotary cutter are perfect for beginners—if you know how to straight stitch and backstitch, you can complete them—while three rotary cutter projects will include more challenging techniques such as blocks set on point or curved seams. In November and December the Bake Shop will offer a holiday gift series featuring 60-, 90-, and 120-minute gifts for sewers of all levels.

Wonderland Stacked Coins

Lisa encourages Moda Bake Shop readers to use the tabs at the top of the Bake Shop page to search for projects by Recipe (categories including quilts, bags and totes, apparel), Chef (the project designer), and Index (the month the project appeared on the blog). You can also follow the Bake Shop on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Flickr by clicking the links on the left-hand column of the Bake Shop home page.

When she’s not editing the blog, you’ll find Lisa sewing (the quilts in this post are her creations using Moda precuts) and blogging at Vintage Modern Quilts. She’s excited about the Show Us Your Stash party not only as the Bake Shop’s editor, but for personal reasons. “I have quite a stash of Moda precuts myself,” she says. “Just like everyone else, I’m really inspired by seeing how other people store and use them.”