Ditto, created through a collaboration between JOANN and SINGER, makes digital sewing pattern projection accessible to home sewists. Developed beginning in 2019 with research and testing involving real sewists and Kent State design students, its system projects customizable patterns onto fabric and adjusts them to the user’s measurements. The brand’s stated aim is to make sewing more inclusive, accessible and creative for every body.
Support Enterprises, IncFrom its Jamestown, New York shop, Support Enterprises, Inc. turns customer concepts into sewn products as an American industrial sewing contractor. Its work includes military-supplied equipment and consumer goods, with a design team that can develop prototypes before production. The for-profit company was spun off from The Resource Center and works with it when possible to employ people with developmental disabilities, while directing a portion of its profits to the organization’s missions.JAMESTOWN, NY
SewSlick, LLCFounded around owner and creative director Dawn Kennedy’s mission to revive sewing as a practical, creative life skill, SewSlick, LLC teaches sewing through hands-on classes and workshops. Its Linthicum Heights studio also provides one-on-one lessons, sewing machine service, small-scale embroidery, and space for community events and co-working.BALTIMORE, MD
General Wear IncStarting in a bedroom with one domestic embroidery machine, Brooklyn’s General Wear Inc. has grown into a needlework studio making custom embroidery, sewn pieces and full merchandise collections. Since entering commercial embroidery in 2020, the formerly named NoGentleman Inc. has paired Japanese-made machinery, German threads and experienced digitizers with a focus on detailed, timely production. Its work spans projects for businesses, artists, sports organizations and emergency response teams.BROOKLYN, NY
LynenLynen grew from Sarah’s pandemic-era lessons on her grandmother’s embroidery machine into a brand of playful, hand-dyed and embroidered tea towels. Named for Nana Lynda, who passed along the machine, the business draws on Sarah’s fashion-design background in New York and produces its detailed designs in the USA. Its witty kitchen pieces are made to feel more like small design objects than traditional tea towels.