following threads

beauty and use; things don't have to be so serious

Somehow we haven’t written to you since March? Part of it is that 14,000 newsletter readers feels like a lot of responsibility to make something “worth reading” and not “waste” time. (And as always, please unsubscribe if you want!) But the bigger part is figuring out what we want to make — where’s the energy, what feels good? We took a two-year-ish break from actively working on all well projects. Now, we’re taking stock of our dozen or so patterns, risograph printed publications, and book. Looking back, these things feel strangely distant: they were really successful, used by tens of thousands of people. They are largely well regarded resources for the sewing community. Where does that leave us now? We felt a bit caught in formality. Strict definitions of “usefulness” — but thinking about it longer, there’s so much more space to expand.

Coming back to working together with more regularity has offered the chance to decide what it is we really want to do. The way forward is to slowly work on projects that we feel interested in. And to narrate that process, photograph it, notice the beauty and moments where we experience flow, and feel excited. We are digging in: to the nature of creative collaboration, and cultivating our own practices in solitude. This is an opportunity to remember and discover anew why we love sewing, still like sewing, and how we do it.

We have been working on a collection of kids sewing patterns, a kid-sized box top, and kids shorts/pants. It is taking so long to make this kids sewing pattern, with lots of big life changes this past year. We are trying to release our expectations of what we should be capable of and return to what feels possible now. Great, it’s taking a long time, that’s fine.

Talking together, we settled on a mindset shift that all well is (and always has been) a creative sewing studio, not a pattern company. A project where we occasionally make sewing patterns and other things. A collaboration, a relationship, and an outward-facing expression of our personal sewing practices. That’s our why, and will be the undertone of anything we put out from now on. There are places folks can go for cool and trendy new sewing patterns, and that probably won’t be all well. We will be out here making things, big and small, that delight us, and talking about how it feels to sew. Everything we offer is shared as one way to do things, not the only way. There are many places to turn to for sewing patterns, sewing information, etc. The trick is finding the teachers and projects that mesh with your mind, goals, and how you learn.

To do any creative project at all is amazing. There are so many steps, it requires so much knowledge, you learn and grow so much. To make a zine, to sew something, to make anything.

Making something others can use is even more amazing. Offering something is a cool use of your time. So we want to continue offering things you can use. Sewing patterns, publications, newsletters — making things and putting them out into the public. We have almost too many ideas right now, a good buzzy feeling, but also the feeling of not wanting to get ahead of ourselves or neglect projects that could benefit from some follow-through. Our general goal for moving forward is to follow whatever threads feel fun and possible, and to let there be different levels of things we put out. Tutorials in the newsletter, a short and more casual pattern in a zine format, and then, more occasionally, fully graded and tested garment patterns.

Not everything has to be super polished! Like this old tutorial Amelia made about sewing a climbing rope bag, with just pencil drawings and no photos at all! Or like the limited edition risograph print of the Half Moon Zip we made a few years ago.

So fun, so simple. We’re excited to experiment more with things that feel like that.

A M E L I A: Recently: Sweater shaving. Mending pants with sticky fabric tape. Unpacking after we moved house and figuring out how to set up the sewing space. Taking inventory of what I have (fabrics, notions, patterns).

This is the current todo list:

1. Mending: mostly sweater elbow holes; a few buttons need to be sewn back on, and there’s a rip in the inside of the elastic waistband of some linen pants.

2. Sew a new cover for my heating pad; the one I made before is out of wool that turns out to be just too scratchy. Also, I just thrifted a second heating pad (we live somewhere with cold winters now!); need a cover for that too.

3. Re-thread the serger.

4. Cushion covers for the new window seat bench we just built. The foam is cut and ready!

5. Silk robe, out of precious fabric. Self draft the pattern.

6. Sew some pants!

7. I want to dye over some pillowcases of living room cushions that are looking a bit dull.

A M Y: I hope to pattern out the knitting project bag I made years ago as a zine.

Returning to knitting in fits and starts (and wrote an essay about knitting and novel writing) — I really want to finally finish this cardigan!

Sewing some clothes for myself when I can carve out the time. I recently really enjoyed sewing Merchant and Mills’ Clover Top.

My husband carved out space in our basement for me to have a dedicated cutting table and it has been a huge positive change for me! So nice when someone who loves you can tell what you need before you can even articulate it.

Still sewing many versions of the little box top, and doing some test fitting with real kids! Feels good! :)

listening to… Country music: the Twisters soundtrack; Vincent Mason’s There I Go, John Prine, Chris Stapleton. Matt Beringer’s Get Sunk. Mapache. Lots of Tourist for ambient background for hands-on work. Lily Allen’s new album West End Girl feels like the divorce pop-musical I never knew I needed.

eating…. Six and a half minute eggs. Cooking through Samin Nosrat’s new Good Things cookbook, and making multiple batches of the Sesame Ginger dressing (here’s the recipe on NYT Cooking, and on a non-paywalled blog) and pickled red onions. Plus sugar cookies, with toddler assistance. Lots of sourdough (made Tartine book style).

drinking… smoothie life, costco everything: smoothie blender, frozen berries, protein powder, bananas. And tea lattes with frothed milk every afternoon, plus the sparkling water flavors I can only stock up on when I make it out to Trader Joe’s (40 minutes away!)

reading… Outlander series (so many! so long!), Lily King’s Heart the Lover (and revisiting Writers and Lovers too!). Automatic Noodle (robots running a restaurant set in SF in the post-civil-war country of California) — sort of A Psalm for the Wild-Built vibes. Everything She Touched, a biography of Ruth Asawa.

the weather is… sun behind clouds, crystals of rain on the branches and power lines lit like jewels, the last yellow leaves on the trees. First snow flurries, and lots of rain. Big moon slowly getting smaller.

Print some booklets of your own work! Amy has been making her google doc diary into a zine (printing just 1 copy!) and wrote about how you can do it as well; and (same process, way more detail) Amelia and Adam recently published a free zine about making a zine or book from a PDF, and how to risograph print it too if you want.

At Short Run, Amelia got a copy of Kacy McKinney’s Mourning Attire, a zine about navigating grief with drawings, quilt photos, and remaking clothes. It’s not on sale online yet, but Portland people can find it at a release and reading event on 12/4 6-8pm at the NW Museum of Cartoon Arts.

The textile color-sculpture works by Tomislav Topić.

Amy is working as a birth doula in Pittsburgh, and published a new zine about weaning this summer for her publishing project Imaginary Lake!

Lots of fun tools for making sewing patterns for outdoors gear.

Picked up this new book about hand-sewing clothes from the library. I didn’t know some of the finer details of handsewn clothes, so fun to learn.

Mary Cassat’s Young Mother Sewing.

Madison Moore on starting to sew clothes.

Harriet Powers pictorial quilt stamps are coming next year!

If you’re looking for small-press gifts (or something to put on your own wish list), we recommend these publications (risograph printed and assembled by hand) by friends of ours: The Domestic Partner, the 2026 Floral Observer Subscription, and Tomato Diary.

Thanks for reading!

— Amelia and Amy