"Again and again I fumble with needle and thread. This is a love story." So begins writer and editor Maddie Ballard's slim, gentle Patchwork: A Sewist's Diary, which reflects on years spent learning to sew and how that journey ultimately came to mean much more than the clothes she made. Following instructions she didn't understand, "certain [she was] doing something wrong," as she and a former partner hunkered down at his parents' home during the Covid-19 pandemic, Ballard slowly learned the warp and weft of fabric, how to coax it into something new, each time finding the transformation miraculous. As her life changed--a breakup, a relocation to her grandmother's house, a new job, and graduate school in a new city--she lugged her sewing machine from place to place. Ballard charts her path in short chapters centered around specific garments made during each period.
The patterns for Ballard's dresses, jackets, pants, and tops are illustrated throughout in simple black-and-white by Emma Dai'an Wright, accompanying musings on how to participate in an industry that struggles with sustainability and how slowly constructing item after item of clothing is a lesson in patience, learning the contours of one's body, and building confidence and a wardrobe to carry forward. As accessible for readers who don't intend to ever sew a stitch as it is appealing to seasoned sewers, Patchwork is an affectionate look at how making something intentional and imperfect by hand connected her to herself, and the world. After all, Ballard writes, "My body is my only lasting home, I remember--I want, I need, to love it." --Kristen Coates, editor and freelance reviewer