fluorescent threads
groundedness and inspiration, at home and away
Hello from All Well!
We hope your February has been soft wherever you are — with moments of happiness and ease. Spring is coming slow and steady — that promise feels important to us right now! Here’s a little update from each of us, news from the all well studio, and links & recs!
A M E L I A: It’s been a very travel, fabric, and artist publishing filled month for me. NYC and Brooklyn, then Paris: I went to Toast and Buck Mason felt all the fabrics! Admiring the simple homegoods at La Trésorerie and Merci – pot holders, napkins, tea towels. The feel of the Labo Art shirts is incredible. It's all about the fabric.
Sewing and textiles feature in small press publishing too; I’ve been thinking about that so much. Paper is a fabric, it has a grain that dramatically influences what you make. You cut it and fold it and press it. We did studio tours with Lucky Risograph and Parsons New School, who both have amazing collections of paper swatch books. Browsing them felt like being in a fabric store, imagining what you could make, how it would feel. And with books and zines, you can sew the bindings by hand or with machines: at Quintal Atelier, I was struck by the fluorescent threads hanging above their industrial sewing machine.
It feels creative in a different way to write to our governor and state representatives about defending civil rights for queer and trans people, for undocumented people, abortion access, healthcare, and voting rights. This ongoing constitutional crisis / authoritarian, oligarchical coup / dismantling of the government we have going on in the US right now is so horrible, in so many ways. I’m finding energy in the growing economic boycotts, protests and demonstrations, like the economic boycott coming up on Friday 2/28. (Basically, don’t buy stuff! Boycott Amazon, Walmart, Target, fast food, gas; small business ok.) We have power together. And making things, mending things, and making art, is extra vital as fascism is on the rise.
A M Y: Snow and sickness all around this month, with bursts of sunlight and happiness. My younger son suddenly says dozens of words — it feels like magic to know now what he is thinking about! “Dump truck” features heavily. I haven’t been getting out much, but saw a few plays for the first time in a while, and visited a new-to-me library location with beautiful stained glass windows and big stone columns.
Cooking simple meals at home every night is grounding. I’m realizing we hardly ever eat food from restaurants anymore. Latest satisfying revelation is that I like cooking a huge pot of dried beans in the instant pot (very easy, no soaking!) and then freezing them in 1 cup portions — for some reason defrosting beans in a pot feels easier than opening a can, and I like that it includes onions and spices already! Life at home raising young kids feels like a spinning globe with strong centrifugal force, especially in the winter. I feel pinned to the house, like gravity — but there’s a comfort in that groundedness, especially now. Escaping to the studio feels really good, though I have to remind myself that it isn’t an escape, it’s my work! Amazing the way slowly sewing through a tiny pair of pants can feel like a treat. I play comforting music on the bluetooth speaker and try not to think. It’s glorious.
I also had a burst of creative happiness this month turning my long running google doc diary into a print zine! I like typing my diary, but once I had zine-ified the doc it felt so good to hold my words in my hands — so I think I’ll do this every few months now! I wrote a post about it over on my substack with a tutorial for how you can make a zine out of pretty much anything (using ANEMONE’s Spectrolite), check it out if that sounds fun!
A M Y: The new kids play pants pattern has gone through a first round of grading and is well on its way! It’s been so fun to sew a bunch of new pairs of pants for my kids as I finalize the design. And helpful to have willing and committed wear-testers in two separate sizes right in my house! More testing still to do, so more pants to sew. And then, moving on to the kids box top.
I also sketched out and tested a first draft for a new adult pants pattern. Grown ups need play pants too! Shooting for a very comfortable around-the-house pant with lots of ease that still feels polished enough to wear out and about. That’s basically all I want to wear these days, anyway! Cute home clothes!
I’ve also been thinking about sewing another cross-back apron based on the yellow linen one I drafted many years ago now so that I’m not apron-less when the yellow one is in the wash. Who knows, maybe that will become an all well pattern soon too! I’m thinking a pink apron would be nice, and it would match my kitchen. Or, maybe red? I recently organized my very overstuffed fabric stash and I have so many beautiful fabrics waiting to be used! The secondhand fabric sale in Pittsburgh is truly the gift that keeps giving.
A M E L I A: Not much studio work for me, since we’re in travel mode. Some writing with Amy in the instructions google doc for the play pants, and spreadsheeting for the new kids size chart. I laid out the first test print of the graded play pants for Amy to print using the blueprint printing at Staples. The kids pants fit on 30x42" paper, and at $6.75 it’s not a bad price in trade for the time it would take to print at home and tile the paper together.
I felt most enlivened during a writing session where I wrote up some sparks of inspiration for what will (possibly!) be one of our next adult clothing patterns. That felt like good energy, even though it’s far off. Envisioning the fabrics, the hacks, the instructions, the ways to teach, and all the ways to wear it and layer it. I’ve also been noticing homegoods as we’ve been out and about, and spotted these two beautiful curtains in Paris. The one made of bubble wrap, what an amazing choice for a street level fabric. The noticing is part of the work, too.
Some local-ish recs first:
If you’re in Seattle, the Sea Slug Animation Festival—a new Pacific Northwest hub for independent animation—is March 7–8 at SIFF Cinema Uptown! The inaugural festival will showcase local and international short films, a new and a retrospective feature, an Artist Alley of local artists, and mixers for audiences and artists to connect. (And Amelia’s friend Alex Barsky made an incredible riso-printed animated poster for the festival!)
Are you or anyone you doing Risograph printing related stuff in the Midwest? Artist, press, publisher, book shop, community space, educational hub, book fair, zine library, event organizer, or any other connection to RISO... please fill out and share the form! (There’s a companion to the RISO West Coast catalog in the works!)
The big spring secondhand fabric sale in Pittsburgh is coming up on April 12th! Best advice is to show up early — people start lining up way before the start time, and some good stuff goes quick. Get some coffee and enjoy the frenzy!
Some things to read:
Daughter Judy on why you might want to get a coverstitch machine as you get into sewing knit clothing. Charlie Porter’s book What Artists Wear, and Alex Leach on the fashion industry right now. Notes (and photos!) on Louise Bourgeois' relationship with clothes and Georgia O'Keeffe's curated wardrobe by Sasha Zavyalova. From even\cleveland: "this is our first action" with more details about the economic boycott, and “NO ONE WAY WORKS, it will take all of us shoving at the thing from all sides to bring it down. Diane di Prima”
Other assorted recs:
Amy: I was surprised by how much I liked Cocoa Berry Tea from Trader Joes. It’s different from any tea I’ve had before, and really smooth and satisfying!
Recommending two novels about cataclysm and its aftermath: Small Rain by Garth Greenwell and The Wall by Marlen Haushofer.
Burda has three free bike-related sewing patterns up that look cute!
Love the idea of keeping a dinner diary.
I also loved The Wall!
The Wall! I read it last year and was gobsmacked. Why was I required to read My Side of the Mountain or Walden or a hundred other man-authored books in school, and never required to read this? Changed my life (in a slow-paced way)