This time last year, I was preparing to run the first of the in-person workshops at the new Cloth Cutter Studios. It was the Love Your Overlocker workshop and coincidentally this is also the first workshop of 2026. However a lot has happened between those two workshops. Quietly, with careful steps and steady intention the doors have been open, the studio has been working, and something new has been taking shape - not rushed, not flashy, but real.
This has been the first full year of teaching, making, designing, and welcoming people into the space. A year of sending a new pattern out into the world, of cups of coffee shared around cutting tables, of garments slowly becoming wearable, loved things. A year of rebuilding - thoughtfully, deliberately, and with care.
It feels important for me to pause here. Not to leap ahead to what comes next, but to acknowledge what has already been made. To reflect on what this year has held, what it has asked of me, and what it has quietly given back to me in terms of confidence, clarity, and a renewed sense of purpose.
Starting Again (But Not From Scratch)
Although The Cloth Cutter is young, it is not naïve. It was born carrying experience with my decades of teaching, pattern cutting, fitting, problem-solving, and working alongside people as they learn to trust their hands and their judgement.
But it was also born from loss. From the ending of something I had poured myself into. Starting again required a different kind of courage than starting for the first time. It meant holding confidence and vulnerability at the same time. Knowing I had the skills, while accepting that trust, momentum, and financial stability would need to be earned all over again.
What surprised me most was how deeply personal that rebuilding felt. This year hasn’t just been about setting up a business; it has been about reclaiming my sense of authority, joy, and belonging in my work. About remembering why I teach. Why I care so fiercely about how making and wearing clothes that reflect you can be - quite honestly - life changing.
The Studio as a Living Thing
The studio has been at the heart of this year. It has always been important to me to be able to create a space where all feel welcome, seen and supported. Which is why the Studio feels more than just a workspace, it has also become a container - for concentration, laughter, quiet breakthroughs, new friendships and moments where someone looks down at a garment and says, almost incredulously, “I didn’t think I could do this.”
As the year progressed more workshops filled the calendar: machines humming into life, patterns traced and altered, trousers wrestled into submission, moulages pinned and re-pinned until bodies were truly seen. There is a particular kind of magic in a room full of people working intently, each on their own project, yet somehow together.
I’ve been reminded again and again that learning happens best when people feel safe. Where they are not rushed, not judged, not pushed to perform. Creating that atmosphere has become one of my quiet promises. Calm over chaos. Depth over speed. Support over spectacle.
What I didn’t realise was how much I also needed that kind of safe, supportive space to build my own confidence back up again. Where my knowledge and expertise felt recognised and valued.
Teaching as Relationship, Not Transaction
One of the strongest threads running through this year has been a reminder that teaching is, at its core, relational. People don’t arrive at The Cloth Cutter simply to learn a technique or complete a garment. They come seeking something steadier than that, more a sense of confidence, of capability, of feeling more at ease in both their bodies and their making.
Over the months, I’ve seen confidence take root in the smallest, quietest ways:
– someone cutting into beautiful fabric without hesitation or apology
– a pattern being adjusted with curiosity instead of self-blame
– a maker realising that “good enough” can also be right, wearable, and true
These are not throwaway moments. They are the work.
This year has deepened my conviction that making clothes for you, that fit you, is not about striving towards an idealised shape, but about paying attention to bodies, to fabric, to what feels comfortable and honest. That pattern cutting is as much about empathy as it is about skill. And that sewing, when taught with care, can be both deeply practical and quietly transformative.
Patterns, Membership, and Quiet Reach
Beyond the studio walls, The Cloth Cutter has slowly found its voice online. Patterns have gone out to homes I will never visit, carried by careful instructions and the hope that someone, somewhere, feels encouraged rather than overwhelmed as they open them.
The membership in The Cutting Room has grown gently too, though perhaps grown isn’t quite the right word. It hasn’t been a year of rapid expansion, and the library hasn’t ballooned in the way I once imagined it might. Instead, it has settled into something steadier, a calm, reliable place that simply exists for people when they need it.
The Cutting Room has become a resource rather than a performance. A place to dip in and out of, to revisit a technique, to remind yourself how something works, or to take the next small step when you’re ready. It isn’t about constant newness, but about usefulness. About knowing that the guidance is there, quietly waiting, when confidence wobbles or curiosity returns.
Given that everything within The Cloth Cutter is created, taught, and held by one person, that sense of stability feels important. The Cutting Room doesn’t demand attention, it offers support. And this year, I’ve come to see that as a strength rather than a shortcoming.
I’ve learned that growth doesn’t always need fireworks. Sometimes it looks like steadiness. Like people staying. Like emails that are read slowly. Like messages that say, “I tried this again and it finally clicked.”
The Reality of Running a Small Craft Business
Running The Cloth Cutter this year has meant holding two realities at once. On one hand, there is the day-to-day practicality of a small craft business: workshops to fill, bills to pay, schedules to juggle, and the constant negotiation of time, energy, and income. These things matter, and ignoring them isn’t an option.
Alongside this, my MA in Sustainable Fashion has been quietly reshaping how I think about growth, success, and responsibility. It has asked me to look more critically at pace, extraction, labour, and value and to question the default assumption that “more” is always better. That learning hasn’t stayed on the page. I’ve been trying, imperfectly and in real time, to bring it into the business itself.
That has meant making choices that don’t always align with conventional ideas of scaling or productivity. Choosing depth over volume. Relationships over reach. A business model that can be held by one person, rather than stretched to breaking point. It has also meant accepting that implementation is rarely neat. That learning happens alongside constraint, and that values take time to embed.
There have been moments of tension, of uncertainty, and of recalibration. But this year has given me a clearer sense of what kind of business I want to run: one that is financially viable, yes, but also thoughtful, humane, and responsive. One that allows space for learning, reflection, and care - not just output.
In that sense, The Cloth Cutter is not only a business I run; it is also a practice. A place where ideas about sustainability, longevity, and respect for people and materials are tested gently, adjusted, and slowly woven into everyday work.
Threads of the Future
This year has quietly fed into bigger questions too. About sustainability, local making, regenerative systems, and what it might mean to clothe ourselves differently in the years ahead. The seeds of those ideas are present in The Cloth Cutter already in the emphasis on longevity, repair, understanding, and respect for materials.
They show up in the way we talk about fabric. In the way we value skills. In the refusal to treat clothing as disposable or bodies as problems to be fixed.
The Cloth Cutter is not just about learning to sew. It is about learning to pay attention.
Gratitude, Deep and Wide
When I look back over this first full year, the feeling that rises above everything else is gratitude.
Gratitude to everyone who stepped through the studio door whether with confidence or quiet nerves, for a single workshop or many. To those who placed their trust in a pattern, took the time to read an email, recommended a class to a friend, or offered encouragement from a distance.
I’m grateful for the conversations, the thoughtful feedback, and the kind words that arrived at just the right moment - often without knowing how needed they were. Each of these gestures, small and large, has helped shape The Cloth Cutter into something real, held, and shared.
Closing the First Chapter
One year in, The Cloth Cutter feels less like a start-up and more like a practice - something lived into, shaped through use, and refined over time. It is not finished, and it isn’t meant to be. But it is grounded now, growing at a pace that feels sustainable, honest, and quietly purposeful.
As I step into the year ahead, I do so with steadier hands and clearer boundaries, and with a deeper trust in the work and in myself. This first full year has laid foundations not just for what The Cloth Cutter does, but for how it exists.
Thank you for being part of this beginning.
Here’s to many more shared cutting tables, careful stitches, and those moments of realisation that say, “Oh yeah, I can do this after all.”
Happy Sewing!
Jules x