Approved Textiles

I’ll never forget the first time I saw, who I read as, two men holding hands walking down the street. Spring break, 2004, West Village. I saw nurturance of queerness in public and my life was changed.

Public displays of queerness and transness that subvert normative cultures will forever be my catnip.

Then I got this text from my sister this morning and was reminded why.

I also realized I need to reclaim the rainbow more fully so I can speak this person’s language. This person who felt the need to communicate their hurt in such an unfortunate way.

If hurt people hurt people, this is where I rely on allies and accomplices who have people in their lives who use slurs to choose love and help them heal.

I think part of the reason this hit me so hard is that I became resentful of the Pride flag as corporations, institutions, and big business co-opted it within capitalism.

Pride as profit, not Pride as survival.

I had to search for a new symbol that I could communicate with. BUT symbols only matter if they help us reach each other.

For any allies who need an actionable on Philadelphia’s day of Pride: unblock or refollow that problematic in-law and engage.

It’s party time. Let’s give each other presents

Our fourth and final pack is what started this project.

One of my favorite Ben Jealous quotes goes something along the lines of: a room is only as diverse as the number of different definitions of justice around the table.

For those just joining: As we look to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we at Approved Textiles are looking at ways we can continue into the next 250 years with patience, love, empathy, collaboration, and understanding at the center of our work toward collective liberation from systems of oppression and discrimination.

For us, nothing epitomizes this more than Ben Jealous’ Never Forget Our People Were Always Free. Throughout his memoir, Jealous shares the ways collaboration and connection are key to social change, providing example after example of how building alliances—even in the most unlikely of places—creates change.

He should know. He served as the youngest President of the NAACP.

If you go back and listen to the songs over the previous posts in our feed for the 250 packs, you’ll hear different cultural interpretations of Amazing Grace, perhaps the most iconic of all gospel songs.

With this pack, we really leaned into that energy of collaboration, like gospel. Someone will still see these designs and think, perhaps, they’re only within one tradition. We’re excited to show the ways they’re more than that.

Because the hardest part isn’t that it’s this or that. It’s that it’s both.
Not either/or, but together.

We just have to listen.

All packs are now available online and in person. We’ll release the full set on Faire later this week. Make sure to use our Faire Direct link in our bio if it’s your first time with us.

We’re nearly two weeks out from our online offering of Bojagi + Patchwork, and we want to make sure materials arrive in time. Because of that, registration for this workshop will close next Friday, June 5.

Register in the link in our bio.

Bojagi + Patchwork is one of our favorite offerings because it helps people finally start projects with the fabric scraps they’ve been holding onto at home.

If you’re following us, there’s a good chance you care about fabric’s impact on the environment. So many of us hold onto scraps knowing we’ll eventually find a meaningful use for them—this workshop helps unlock the skills and confidence needed to make that happen.

While this class is centered around hand stitching, Matthew will absolutely show you how to translate these techniques onto a sewing machine for larger or more time-sensitive projects.

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If you’re in a bordering state, we have a little more wiggle room :) And if you’ve already registered, we’ll be shipping materials soon, so keep an eye on your inbox for tracking information.

In Postcolonial Love Poem, Natalie Diaz writes about water as something that is not separate from us, but part of us.

I think about that a lot when I look at the American flag.

The flag tells a story about states and borders: fifty stars for fifty states, thirteen stripes for the original colonies. But it doesn’t tell us much about the rivers, land, ecosystems, or Native nations that existed long before those borders and still sustain life now.

We wanted to imagine a different kind of symbol. One that feels less about ownership and control, and more about connection, movement, and life itself.

We’re trading stars and stripes for galaxies and rivers.

The summer 2026 hand sewing offerings at Approved Textiles are finally open.

We don’t fully know what to expect this summer. Between the 250th celebrations and World Cup, we’re holding a version of the season that isn’t too packed, and isn’t too light.

Big picture: classes and workshops are anchored in July and September. In August, Matthew and I are getting out of Philadelphia for a week to recharge before holiday season begins again, and we’ll scale back programming while we’re away. (I’ll never forget someone coming in the second week of September asking for help putting together Christmas gifts 😅) We’ll share more as August gets closer.

Some new additions are connected to our core classes and how our understanding of time in classes has shifted:

We’ve been thinking a lot about what people actually need from hand sewing classes. Time is limited. Attention is limited. And hand sewing doesn’t rush.

We tried different formats—longer sessions, shorter sessions, different price points—but the feedback was consistent: two hours is not always enough, and even three hours can still feel like a beginning.

So we’ve restructured two of our core offerings around that reality.

Sashiko 2
Our original curriculum tried to balance technique and design, but after a year of teaching, we’ve found a 2-hour class doesn’t fully allow both to land with confidence. So we’re splitting them up. This class is only open to students who have completed Sashiko 1 in the Spring.

Tune Up
When we learn a new skill, we have to keep practicing it or we lose muscle memory. We take seriously what it takes to build and retain a practice. While an intro class can open the door, sustaining it takes time. We’re in this together.

NEW OFFERING
The Night Out
There’s something special about Friday nights in the summer. Matthew and I wanted to create an all-inclusive night that meets that feeling: drinks and snacks while hand sewing, slowly flowing into dinner with a local James Beard award-winning chef. After you reserve your seat, all you have to do is show up.

The full schedule is up on our website, linked in our bio.

What does it mean to choose love as a value within social justice movements?

How can we put this into practice?

Not flower power love, but love as a tool of power.
Not the only tool. But a tool.

If you’re not familiar, Kai Cheng Thom is well known throughout North America for their work in social justice and restorative practices. They are deeply committed to liberation from racialized, gendered, sexualized, and economic forms of oppression and discrimination. I say this to acknowledge that Thom has done incredible work for social good while also offering a sharp critique of the internal workings of our movements.

It’s not the ideology of the movement that’s the problem—it’s often the tactics and dynamics.

I won’t go into all of them here, because each deserves its own post, but one overarching theme is shame. So much shame can be deployed and internalized in social justice spaces that it begins to counter or stall the very work it’s meant to advance.

And while there is absolutely a time and place for shame to be used strategically, we can’t rely on the same tool over and over again and expect different results, right?

There’s also a lot of research about the power of shame and love. We’ll share that soon.