Bold bedding from West Seattle's Sin in Linen

Sandy Glaze spent months coaxing skeptical manufacturers to produce fabric printed with racy blond pinups for her one-woman operation, Sin in Linen.

So when factory managers in Alabama with "good Christian" employees saw the sexy fabric and refused to sew it into sheets, the persistent Glaze armed herself.

She took a book on pinup history to Alabama and assured factory managers that the pinup was an art form even featured on bombers in World War II.

Her fledgling bedding company was "flirty ... not dirty," she told them. She argued they were practically supporting today's troops by making sheets with links to the military. They made her sheets.

"There's a huge, long list of touch-and-go moments around here," Glaze said recently, referring to her tiny office in West Seattle, the "World Headquarters" for Sin in Linen.

Glaze's company wants to take your bed by storm with its cheeky motto, "Try Something New In Bed!" on its equally sassy 230-thread-count cotton-sateen sheets featuring the Joie de Viv blonde.

It also sells pillows and duvets featuring skulls, tattoos and a black-and-white coquettish pinup called Soxy.

So far, 14 stores nationwide carry Glaze's products, and she is about to launch a second line of linens emblazoned with classic tattoo designs, including an eye-catching rose with thorns and swallows holding a heart.

"It's like grandma's linens, but with skulls or tattoo swallows," Glaze said.

The stores bartering in the counter-culture that Glaze embodies are embracing her sheets.

Easy Street Records ventured into the bedding territory in its lifestyles section with Sin in Linen, the only bedding line the independent music store carries.

Easy Street likes to back local businesses, and Glaze also has done some consulting work for the store, said operations manager Bob Major.

"We believe in her and we believe in the product," Major said. "There was a connection in what she's doing and the music community."

Besides, he added, "Her sheets rock."

Easy Street owner Matt Vaughan said Sin in Linen products have been popular, even with local celebrities. He said Seattle Storm hotshot Lauren Jackson bought bedsheets and pillowcases at its Queen Anne location two weeks ago.

"We've known Sandy for a long time and hey, I can't help but be intrigued by hotrod girls and flames and tattoos," Vaughan said, laughing.

Hannah Curtin's bedding and lingerie store called Sleep, located in Brooklyn, N.Y.'s trendy Williamsburg neighborhood, already sold out of Glaze's bedding, which it started carrying in spring.

Sleep attracts fashion-forward women and rockers alike who are drawn to Sin in Linen's sexy pinup design and tattoo-patterned duvet cover, Curtin said.

"I definitely think there's a need in the market for what she does," Curtin said.

That's how Glaze felt a few years back.

She was looking for a comforter and didn't like the sweet pastels and "paper-towel" designs that greeted her at stores. Glaze, who grew up in the punk-rock scene in Los Angeles, figured she wasn't the only one who wanted funky bedsheets.

So she and some girlfriends came up with the name and idea for erotic bedsheets over whiskey one night.

Glaze laughs now at how naive she was when she started. The art and engineering major, whose main experience was in technology, took on a massive industry with entrenched companies dealing in extraordinary volume.

And along came Glaze, a woman in her 30s trying to make sheets printed with a blonde wearing a barely-there black bikini and a seductive look in her eyes. She said she could tell manufacturers looked at her pinup design and thought, "Who is this girl?"

But Glaze was patient, and began cultivating relationships and yes, sweet-talking factory officials and manufacturers from time to time.

And she even had some fun along the way. When she flew to New York to meet a pinup-art dealer to discuss copyright, she showed up at the meeting in pinup clothes — complete with seamed stockings, a secretary skirt and fitted blouse. He liked it.

"I like theatrics," she said. "I like being passionate about what I do. If I can dress in period at a meeting, that's great."

Glaze's spunky company meshes with her lifestyle. She practices two or three times a week with the Rat City Rollergirls, Seattle's full-contact roller-derby league where women sport tattoos, helmets, mouthguards and fishnets.

During the day, she works solo at her office. Her mother Iris Glaze, who helped finance the company, assists, but holds another full-time job.

Glaze says it's important to her to showcase local artists as much as possible. Seattle-based artist Krystof Nemeth drew Soxy, and tattoo artist Jesse Roberts helped design the new line.

Glaze's new line is focused on classic embroidered tattoo designs because the first tattoo pattern was so popular.

Sin in Linen recently garnered a mention in the magazine Juxtapoz and a feature in Venus Zine. Glaze hopes to see her bedding on the "Today" show or "Oprah" some day.

Until then, she will keep drawing from a deep well of ideas and thriving in a soul-satisfying job.

"I don't know if I dreamed of starting my own business as much as I hoped to express myself in my life," she said. "I'm thrilled this is the way I've gone."

Nicole Tsong: 206-464-2150 or ntsong@seattletimes.com