Sewing talk with real project grit.
Love to Sew pairs friendly sewing-room conversation with specific, useful detail about making clothes, accessories, and creative work. Episodes move from bag reveals and rainwear terms to plus-size pattern drafting, Inuit sewing traditions, and the emotional hurdle of cutting into treasured fabric.
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Love to Sew is a craft show with the texture of a long conversation between people who actually sew. It is warm, but it is not fluffy. Helen and Caroline bring enough technical language to satisfy garment makers, then keep translating that detail back into choices a home sewist can picture. One episode may linger over a soft, slouchy lined bag and the search for a crossbody shape that suits real pockets, real errands, and real bodies. Another may sort through rainwear with terms like hydrostatic head rating and DWR, while still making room for Pacific Northwest weather jokes and pattern-development excitement. The show’s project episodes work because the reveals feel genuine. Bags, hats, special fabric, blazers, bias-cut dresses, berets, bucket hats, and sun hats are discussed through fabric behavior, structure, styling, mistakes, and motivation. It is not just a parade of finished makes. The hosts talk about the hesitation before cutting into beloved fabric, the usefulness of making a full muslin, and the quiet pile of unfinished projects that every sewist recognizes. Interview episodes widen the show’s world. Lila Kelleher brings a practical, neutral lens to plus-size patternmaking and the market habits shaped by years of exclusion. Sydney Graham’s episode follows sewing work through pattern design, content creation, balance, and DIY sewing spaces. Laura Pia Churchill’s conversation gives space to Inuit sewing traditions, parkas, amautit, family patterns, and the meaning of passing skill through generations. Across formats, Love to Sew keeps returning to community. It treats sewing as a way to dress, repair, remember, experiment, and build a creative life. The pace is brisk and friendly. The detail is real. The appeal is the feeling that a listener can sit down with fabric, thread, and a question, and find both company and a few workable next steps.
Made for: Love to Sew is for garment sewists, fabric collectors, pattern tinkerers, and craft-business watchers who enjoy practical technique with friendly conversation. It especially suits makers who want specificity without gatekeeping.
What sets it apart: The show blends hands-on sewing detail with the emotional and social life of making: cherished fabric, fit, accessibility, cultural traditions, creative work, and sewing friendships. Its project reveals and interviews feel lived-in rather than polished flat.
Helen Wilkinson and Caroline Somos host Love to Sew, a fun weekly podcast about making clothes, sewing community, and small business. They talk about their passion for sewing a handmade wardrobe and their daily lives as creative entrepreneurs. Listen to interviews with indie business owners and inspiring sewists who totally understand your obsession with sewing.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Love to Sew makes garment construction legible through candid project debriefs, practical technique, and interviews attentive to access and sewing culture.
Helen Wilkinson and Caroline Somos turn the worktable into a conversation, moving between their own sewing projects and interviews with people working inside sewing culture.
The good fabric meets the scissors, and your stash suddenly feels a little less untouchable.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A secret bag challenge becomes a warm, practical conversation about making, choosing, and wearing handmade things.
Two sewing friends turn a secret bag-making challenge into a warm conversation about craft, taste, and follow-through. Helen, behind Helen's Closet Patterns and Cedar Quilt Co., and Caroline, owner of Blackbird Fabrics and BF Patterns, reveal their bags to each other while…
Lila Kelleher talks plus-size patternmaking and what helps shoppers trust a brand's fit.
A brand can offer larger sizes and still leave shoppers unsure whether the clothes will fit. Helen and Caroline explore that gap with Lila Kelleher, whose new book, Plus Size Patternmaking for Women's Wear, takes a practical approach to drafting for larger bodies.
Helen and Caroline mark 300 episodes with a relaxed look back at nine years of sewing podcasting, process, patterns, and partnership.
Love to Sew uses its 300th episode to turn the format back on itself, with Helen of Helen's Closet Patterns and Cedar Quilt Co. and Caroline of Blackbird Fabrics and BF Patterns looking over nine years of making the show.
A clear, friendly tour of hat styles, materials, and the fun of making headwear.
This Love to Sew episode treats hat making as something approachable without flattening the craft. Helen and Caroline move from berets built from three simple pieces to bucket hats and sun hats that may need interfacing or millinery wire, keeping the focus on how shape and…
A warm case for cutting into treasured fabric, with a blazer, a bias-cut dress, and relaxed fitting talk.
Love to Sew turns a familiar sewing worry into the episode's real subject: what happens when favorite fabric finally meets an actual garment. Caroline of Blackbird Fabrics and BF Patterns and Helen of Helen's Closet Patterns and Cedar Quilt Co.
A candid look at how a volunteer sewing podcast turns research, seasons, and limited time into sustainable creative practice.
Sewing opens the door to the working culture behind podcast-making as Ada Chen and Nicole Angeline discuss hosting the Asian Sewers Collective podcast.
Helen and Caroline explain how trimming, grading, and notching can make garment seams lie smoother.
A collar can look lumpy even when the stitching is neat. Helen and Caroline focus on the work that comes after sewing the seam: trimming away excess allowance, grading the layers to different widths, and notching where fabric needs to turn.
Fiber projects, friendship, and everyday making.
Shop talk with the mess left in.
Apple decisions, examined down to the window corner.
Weekly film, music, and arts criticism from Monocle 24's Midori House studio in London.
Interview with Christine Millar about her historical costume creation, from pattern drafting to machine embroidery.
Interview with Jacqueline Shaw about wax print fabrics, their history, production, and sewing applications.
Helen and Caroline interview Larry King about nurturing creativity, improv quilting, and his sewing journey.
Ada Chen and Nicole Angeline join Caroline and Helen.
Helen and Caroline get into seam bulk without making it precious.
Bags solve real pocket chaos.
Plus-size patternmaking gets a warm, practical sewing-room conversation.
Three hundred episodes calls for a coffee toast.
Two sewing enthusiasts discuss sewing rainwear, covering waterproof fabrics, patterns, and tips for working with them.
Sewing pattern designer Sydney Graham discusses her career journey, work-life balance, and DIY sewing spaces on the Love to Sew podcast.
Hats get a proper sewing-table chat.
The good fabric finally meets the scissors.
Laura Pia Churchill begins at home.
Helen and Caroline interview Daisy Braid about her sewing journey, book 'Sew It Yourself', and tips for secondhand shopping.
Helen and Caroline interview pattern designer and sewing teacher Natalie Ebaugh about her design process, career, and personal style.