Cut & Sew PHL

It’s easy to overlook your progress if you don’t take a minute to reflect. Pretty wild how much can happen in two years! ✨
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The 2nd Bday/Memorial Day SALE is now through Mon 5/27 at 11:59p.
20% off orders of $50+
30% off orders of $100+
YES, that INCLUDES classes, camps and gift cards!! Nothing is off limits 😎
Discounts happen automatically at checkout.

To say that was inspiring is an understatement! This kid and I both fell in love with “Any Which Way” by Charles Cameron when we saw it hanging in Raleigh. (And I was lucky enough to meet Charles while admiring it and he gave me this beautiful sticker!)
This student ended up buying a bundle of Speckled by Rashida Coleman-Hale from one of the vendors at QuiltCon to make her own maximalist quilt—with hopes of submitting it to QuiltCon 2025! She’s hard at work back in our Philadelphia studio…complete with her T-Swift inspired QuiltCon bracelet! ✨
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Huge thanks to all of you who donated to our QuiltCon fundraiser to get our students & their parents to see their work hanging in the show! As you can see, it was a powerful experience! If you provided an address when you donated, we’ve dropped a little Thank You postcard in the mail…have you received it yet?? ◡̈ 💕

Absolutely thrilled to announce that we were selected as the Winner of the Philadelphia Family 2024 LOVE Awards for Sewing Classes! Thank you all so much for nominating and voting for us and for being such an integral part of this incredible little sewing community ✨ We’re excited and humbled.
The biggest shout out goes to our fantastic team of kids’ sewing instructors—each and every one of you have had a hand in helping us develop this powerful creative program for our students to thrive and I (Melissa) can’t thank you enough ❤️
.obrien
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And CONGRATS to our friends at in Media, PA for being the Main Line Parent 2024 LOVE Award Winner for Sewing Classes 👏

Your quilt can become a cherished keepsake for a child in foster care, just like it did for Mickayla. Ten years on, and the quilt she received still holds a special place in her heart. Join our Quilt Donation Drive and let’s create lifelong memories for children in foster care.

Big thanks to for donating this gorgeous quilt for our quilt drive! She even longarmed it here ✨ We’re collecting kids quilts the rest of April and will send them out in May — there’s still time!

Fresh {Previously Loved} Fabrics for your Friday! ✨ All listed online already and all always $4/yard
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Our Previously Loved Collection helps to redistribute materials within the sewing community and keep them out of landfills. It also makes sewing & quilting more financially accessible to more people and helps us be able to offer our Tiered Pricing Scale on all classes & workshops.

A Previously Loved fabric drop for your Friday! Everything you see is freshly listed in our online shop and available for local pickup this weekend or shipping ✨ Always $4/yd!
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Save the Date(s) ✨
We’re teaming up with to make & collect quilts in APRIL to send to for National Foster Care Awareness month in May! Donated quilts will be given to kids entering foster care as part of a “Comfort Case” which also includes a bag, pajamas, stuffed animal, book, an activity (like a notebook or coloring book), pens or pencils, and basic toiletries—we’ll collect those items as well!
You can make a difference by making & donating quilts, collecting items to fill Comfort Cases, and/or donating to help cover the cost of shipping our donation at the end of the month! And mark your calendars for the weekend of April 19-21…we’re having a quilt-making party!

Fun Fact: We leave our shopping bags “unbranded” so you can more easily get another use (or two or three!) out of them! We do spruce them up a bit though with cute fabric scraps ✨
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BONUS Fun Fact: We’re up to 120 colors of Kona Cotton!! Shop our whole selection online and in store.
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♻️

We’ve added a second week of Camp Wanderlust where we’ll make all things useful for traveling!
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So glad this kid gave this duffle bag pattern a try! It turned out so well and will be so useful for all kinds of adventures! 🚗 💨
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SUMMER CAMPS ARE NOW ENROLLING and we’re just over half full so far ✨ We just added a new camp for June 17-21 : Doll Clothes! 👗 👕
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Join us for an informative and hands-on class designed to help you learn how to take proper care of your modern sewing machine! In this class, you’ll learn essential maintenance practices to keep your machine running smoothly and ensure optimal performance. We’ll provide you with a cleaning kit (that you can take home!) and show you how to really get in there and get all those dust bunnies cleaned out!

Two Dates Available: April 9th or April 13th

THIS JUST IN ✨
Previously Loved Singer Tradition, $75
(Retails for $150)
Local pick up only!

Big shout out to Abi for being the first one to use her sample stitch piece from her Intro. to the Sewing Machine class in the tote bag she made in Beginning Sewing! Such a neat little artifact of the beginning of her sewing journey ✨ Gotta start somewhere!

Join local artist Scott Holford to learn the basics of screenprinting in this fun, collaborative, creative workshop! You’ll learn how to create screenprints using stencils to print on paper, tote bags, t-shirts, and more! You’ll be provided with paper for printing, but we encourage you to bring your own garments/textiles to print on! We’ll have an assortment of additional items (tote bags, shirts, etc.) available during your workshop that can be purchased separately—cash only, please!

Scott Holford is a Mt. Airy local and the graphic artist and printmaker behind Golden Key Prints. You may have seen him and his work at local markets or at our neighbor shop, Vera Doyle! Check out the Pop Up they have planned for February!


We’re offering this workshop twice! Sunday Feb. 11th will be just for adults—bring your gal, your pal, or your LoVeR for this pre-Valentine’s Day fun! On Sunday Feb. 18th we’ll be hosting kids + their grownups for a fun, family-friendly afternoon. For both workshops, the registration fee provides one set of materials. You’re welcome to purchase one registration if you plan to collaborate with your partner, but we wouldn’t be surprised if you end up each wanting your own! Depending on enrollment, additional kits may not be available on the day of the workshop, so we encourage each participant to register for their own seat.

*Face masks are REQUIRED for this specific workshop*

This student came in wearing a (thrifted 🤌) quilty sweatshirt and wanted to make some patchwork! 😍😍 Love it!
Do you rock quilty/sewing-related clothes?! (And no, having little threads all over you doesn’t count 😆)

Our next round of Advanced Beginning Quilting starts this weekend! We have a few seats left and the Class Info email *just* went out so it’s not too late to join in on the fun. We’re meeting on Sunday mornings for 4 weeks and we’re learning 7 basic quilt blocks before we stitch them all together to make our finished quilts! You’ll learn how to construct traditional quilt blocks but there’s so much flexibility and room for creative freedom that your quilt can be as modern as you are! ✨ Swipe to see some gorgeous student work!
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We’re open as usual today (Saturday) from 12-5p! ⛄️ Stop by for a peek at our freshly stocked Previously Loved collection ✨

Happy to receive your donations today and tomorrow as well if you’ve been using your snow days to get ahead on some spring cleaning!

Enjoy your snow day! ❄️ ⛄️ Be safe.

The email for Summer Camp registration just went out to current students! New students will have access beginning on Jan. 20th. Here’s a look at our first round of camps! We’re still working on additional camps for the following weeks and will add them to the website as soon as they’re ready ✨
June 17-21
July 8-12
July 29-Aug 2
Aug 19-23
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Summer Camp Registration is coming ✨

We’re at 8.2M lifetime stitches on this baby! 😳 And that’s only about to increase with 3 more Longarm Basics Class students this weekend (one more spot open!) and 15 longarmers volunteering to longarm quilts for Quilting 4 Good! ICYMI check out our last post for an update ✨
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Raise your hand if you’re responsible for some of those stitches or will be in the future! 🙋‍♀️ I feel like we need some kind of Longarm Club, don’t you?!
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Something exciting happened this weekend! ✨
Susan is a local quilter who has been working tirelessly to make, coordinate others to make, and donate as many quilts as possible to a local shelter for Philadelphia families who are experiencing homelessness. She and her volunteer quilters have been able to donate over 80 quilts so far! This effort is now known as “Quilting for Good”.
We were chatting about her need for people who can longarm the quilt kits she has already prepared and I offered to reach out to our previous Longarm Basics Class students to see if they’d like to help and get some longarm work in! Within 24 hours we already had SO MANY volunteers to longarm Susan’s quilt kits and get more finished quilts into the hands of families who might benefit from some quilty love 💕
If you’re interested in helping out, I’m sure we could have a quilt kit ready for you, too! Complimentary longarm rental + thread courtesy of Cut & Sew PHL so there’s no financial commitment from you, just your time and longarm skills (even if they’re new!) ✨
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Swipe for a few ideas for quick/easy FMQ motifs that’ll get the job done! Save this post for later!

We welcomed Amanda of back to the studio this weekend to teach another Haralson Belt Bag workshop and—wow, did these two make some cute bags! Such fun fabric choices 👏 Well done Melissa & Hilary and a big thank you to Amanda!

Now is the time to start planning those temperature quilts for 2024–or whatever else you might want to track! We had the pleasure of working with to pick a color palette for her 2024 Temperature Quilt! Such a beautiful range of Kona solids and since the hard part is done for you…anyone need a kit for your own project? OK’d it 😉

2023 was pretty great for our little Cut & Sew PHL community ✨ Thank you for being part of it!
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• 177 New Sewists: So many people took the first step in learning to sew! This Intro to the Sewing Machine class is my (Melissa) favorite class to teach—students learn so much in that one hour!
• 68 New Longarmers: Our HandiQuilter Moxie really got a work out this year! So many new quilters who are now equipped to do their own longarming and finish big projects on their own! 💪 Couldn’t do it without 🖤
• 964 yards of Previously Loved Fabric Rehomed: This number wouldn’t be possible without all the generous donations we’ve received. It also doesn’t include the hundreds of yards we have used in our kids’ classes, donated to other people & causes, or given away in our Little Free Fabric Library! Feels so good to redistribute materials like this and do our part in making sewing & quilting a bit more financially accessible to folks. Shout out to the best shopkeepers & Ariel! ✨
• 32 Kids in Spool School PHL: We’re doing our best to beef up our kids’ classes since you keep selling them out! Thank you for your excitement and for sharing your creative kids with us! And of course, we couldn’t do it without our fantastic instructors—THANK YOU:
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🥁 🥁 Aaaaand my favorite numbers of all … 🥁 🥁
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• $915.82 Collected for the Community Fund
• $888.50 Used from the Community Fund
Our Community Fund is working! We collected enough contributions this year to cover (and then some!) all the discounted rates people have been able to benefit from!! Thank you so much to all of you who have added a contribution at checkout! It’s amazing to see how close these numbers are. If you’ve been able to donate, please know that your donations are going to good use! And if you’ve been able to benefit from the Community Rate, please know that you are well supported!
THIS is the energy we’re bringing into 2024 ✨
Happy New Year! 🎆
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Discounts will appear automatically in your cart ✨
Happy New Year! 🎊

Absolutely delighted to be bringing back our Visible Mending class in 2024! ✨
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Visible mending is a technique used to repair a textile and add a funky, new design element rather than trying to hide the repair or make it invisible. Whether you want to keep wearing that favorite pair of jeans where the knee hole got too big to be cute or you want to patch up the elbows on your favorite jacket, visible mending is a great option! Not only does it extend the life of your favorite clothing items, but it keeps them out of the landfill and encourages us to consume fewer textiles.
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This workshop is taught by local textile artist Sarah Tyree-Francis . Sarah will share examples of her own work while she discusses basic mending techniques and materials. You’ll look at her examples and listen in while Sarah works with everyone to come up with a plan for their own creative visible mend.

This quilt is a success story. Parker ran into some longarm troubles one day and came back next time ready to knock it out of the park and THEY DID. That meander is the perfect beginner-friendly FMQ motif and it’s such a great way to get a quilt checked off the To Do List ✅ ✨
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We’re done with regular shop hours for 2023 but available for shopping, studio time, or longarm rental BY APPOINTMENT ONLY (and depending on staff availability)! You can also still shop online and stop by for local pickup—same day possible!

We have some new Free Motion Quilters! ✨ Our students learned how to use domestic machines to free motion quilt on practice quilt sandwiches. It’s so fun and freeing when you drop those feed dogs! Did you know you could do that?!
Thanks for another great class .obrien
More to come in the New Year—let us know if you want to get on the waitlist!
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Pop Up Alert ✨
Stop by the shop this Saturday when we host and her handcrafted soaps & body butters! You’ve probably seen her out and about at local markets and if you haven’t tried her stuff yet you really must!! Such a great way to support a local artist (a real person who lives in our community!) and fill up on very giftable products just in time for the holidays. She’ll be around from 10a-3p or until she sells out (which happens often!)
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You might even see her sporting her custom Prince jean jacket made by our very own 👀
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