Introducing the all well book, How To Sew Clothes!!!
out now!!! 🌟
UPDATE: The book is out now! Hooray! Wherever you like to buy books! Lots of links for places to buy on our website here. Also, this newsletter has info about preordering and the various perks that one could receive after preordering, but now the preordering time is over so the perk time has come to an end. But the Daily Tote pattern is available to buy here if you’d like to sew it! Thanks so much for all your support and excitement about the book! Yay!
How to Sew Clothes will help you start from scratch or reignite your excitement for sewing—so you can make clothes that are personal, well-fitted, and versatile. Today, we want to give you a peek inside the book! It has:
60k words, 600+ images and diagrams across 208 pages
Lots of thoughts about making clothes as a practice and process
Specific instructions and tutorials for learning how to sew for the first time
All our thoughts and experience about choosing fabric
Meditations on keeping sewing for a long, long time
There’s an envelope of printed patterns in the back (!!!), and full instructions for two of our classic garment patterns— the Box Top and the Cardigan Coat — and seven brand new bag patterns!
a sewing book like a cookbook!
This book is a little bit different: it has 60,000 words (that’s a lot for a sewing book!), and 600+ images between photos and hand-drawn diagrams. It’s packed with information! From the start of our collaboration, we couldn’t stop dreaming about a sewing book that’s like a sewing lesson, the kind of thing we wished we had on the desk beside us when we started learning to sew clothes. A sewing book like our favorite books about food: we’ve both long loved the works of M. F. K. Fisher, Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal, Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. There are so many connections between the way those books talk about food and the way we feel and think about sewing. A book that teaches you how to sew, but that also connects sewing to the life you already have. A book with a good mix of writing, of skill-building, and patterns.
box top! cardigan coat!
The center of the book is the instructions for how to sew our two most popular garment patterns: the All Well Box Top and the All Well Cardigan Coat! We’ve included all the variations (Long Sleeve Box Top, Box Dress, Ruffle Top/Dress, Quilt Coat), and most of the hacks from the hacking guides for each!
In the envelope in the back of the book, you’ll find two pattern sheets with all the pattern pieces to trace (bust circumferences 32-62” / 81-157 cm) for the main front and back pieces of the box top and cardigan coat, as well as all the extras you can mix and match: the long sleeve, different shaped pockets, the ruffle.
These clothes are really fun to wear, and designed with learning to sew clothes in mind — with simple shapes and so many options and ways to customize these building-block patterns, you really can use them to make clothes that you, personally, love!
seven NEW bag patterns!
An outfit isn’t complete without a bag, and there are SEVEN new bag patterns for you in the book. Plus a new size of our classic Half Moon Zip.
Bags are great — sewing them, using them, putting them inside other bags! The bags you really like to use become a part of your wardrobe in the same way favorite garments do. Sewing bags is a great way in, approaching sewing clothes from a different angle, building sewing skills in a low-stakes way that often takes less time and material than a garment. Like: sewing straight lines! tracing and laying out pattern pieces! finding fabric! 3-d shapes! small projects!
(Stay tuned later in the week for newsletters that talk about the bags and clothes more!)
for beginners!
If you can sew a straight line, you can sew anything! (And we’ll teach you how to sew a straight line, and give you lots of advice on how to find a sewing machine and the tools you need to get started.)
Learning how to sew clothes can feel a bit overwhelming, so we really wanted to create a resource that makes beginners feel accompanied — like a good sewing class or learning from a friend! Before you even get into the sewing clothes projects, the whole first third of the book is full of special tutorials and sections to really help beginners feel confident working on their first sewing project. We will introduce you to the sewing machine, help you get your studio set up (whether it’s a whole room or a temporary spot at your kitchen table!), and give detailed advice on what different sewing tools are used for and which ones you might want to get! You’ll learn how to sew straight lines, pivot at corners, make seams, backstitch, and do simple troubleshooting when things go awry.
There’s a section about fabric (it’s all about the fabric!) and a chapter that goes in-depth on the process of how a garment is sewn and washed and worn. There are handy checklists and lots of explanation of all the steps, from prepping a pattern to cutting to sewing to pressing. After reading these chapters and trying out the exercises guiding you through sewing your first stitches and seams, you’ll be ready to sew a box top or a cardigan coat or any of the bags! And there are so many hand-drawn diagrams — the instructions are really detailed!
for long-time sewists!
The all well book is about how to cultivate sewing as a practice — how to start, yes, but also how to continue, how to weave it into your days. The book isn’t only for beginners, this book is for everyone interested in sewing clothes! Our approach to sewing seeks to give all the power to the sewist — we want you to make what you want to make, and we want you to feel confident making fabric, style, and fit choices. Sewing is an art form. We approach it as artists and invite you to do the same. How to Sew Clothes is full of choices and opportunities: variations, hacks, fit adjustments, and quick-reference instructions that you’ll want to keep handy anytime you’re sewing.
There’s lots of writing about a variety of feelings and issues that may come up once you’ve been sewing for a while: what to do with a project that just didn’t work, how to use scraps, thoughts on fabric stashes, feelings about the climate crisis, how to deal with ambivalence and discouragement, thoughts on art and process, and lots more! This book is written to be a resource and companion to sewists at all levels!
Read the full table of contents!
abundance! and Sewing!
How to Sew Clothes is about sewing clothes and bags — but it’s also about something else, a thing that is bigger and ultimately more important (dare we say) than sewing. It is about abundance first, and sewing second. The book is about using sewing as a way to practice and gather up abundance, to wear it on your body or over your shoulder out into the day. It’s about sewing because it means something to you. It’s about learning something new without a lot of expectation of how it will turn out in the end, about sinking into a process and seeing what happens. It’s about clothes and wearing them, and about fingers and eyes and minds and souls. It’s about community, and the things you do when you’re all alone at home, quietly huddled over a sewing machine. It’s about abundance — and sewing! And we really hope you’ll love reading it.
—Amelia & Amy, ALL WELL
Find HOW TO SEW CLOTHES at Amazon, Bookshop, Powells, IndieBound, Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, Book Depository, Indigo and bookstores near you.
Finding How to Sew Clothes outside of the U.S. is totally possible! You can get the book through Amazon (for example, the UK and Australia) as well as other major retailers with international reach. Book Depository, Waterstones, and Bookshop ship internationally. Or try asking at your local bookstore! They should be able to get a copy for you. (The ISBN is 9781419762024!) Measurements in the book are given in inches and metric.
ALL WELL: allwellworkshop.com, @allwellworkshop, etsy, spotify, pinterest, youtube.
AMY: amybornman.com, @amybornman, her newsletter My Candle Burns.
AMELIA: ameliagreenhall.com, ANEMONE, @anemone.es, the ANEMONE newsletter.