Hello, I still exist. This photo is months old now, but I made a painting corner in my cutting room. I am still working on finding a way to reconnect with creativity. Thank you for hanging in there with me. I am doing my best.

Hello. It’s my birthday on Sunday, so here is a poorly timed post to tell you that I dyed the ends of my hair pink to celebrate and I went through my backstock today. If you messaged/emailed me about buying something from there over the last… year (😬) then you should have got a response from me sometime today. Now, everyone congratulate me for doing the bare minimum because birthday! 🥳

If you thought you got rid of me, I’m sorry, and hello to everyone who’s still with me after I disappeared for… about a year? I am in what I shall refer to as ‘a transitional period’ in my life, I have moved back to one of my favourite places; Philadelphia; and I really want to say…. next time I decide to ‘just take the foot pedals off’ to transport my machines, can someone force me to take pictures of them first?? I did a lot of thinking about the future of Helvak this past year, when it became something that no longer ‘sparked joy’ or whatever, and I tried really hard to think about when I loved it. I realized that its best era was when it was just me, and my home studio, doing it at my pace and on my terms. So I’ve decided to dial things back to the same dynamic, but I’m bringing the things I learned from my foray into expansion with me (more on that later, I’m trying not to be too wordy.) I am expecting a few bumps in the road. It’s been a while since it was just me, and it’s been a while since I made a lot of these designs, so I won’t be taking many orders for the first few rounds. I’m going to refund any outstanding store credits, because I know it can be frustrating if you have one and can’t get your order placed in time. I want everyone to start out on equal footing. Please send me an email (not a DM) if you have a store credit with me. I have 100% completely ignored my business page and the associated email this entire time, so I have no idea how many of you are still out there. Maybe it won’t be hard to get an order in? I don’t know, but give me a few more weeks to get things rolling and we’ll see how it shakes out. I thank you all in advance for your patience during this ‘transitional’ time. I don’t know much about anything at the moment, but one thing I do know is that I’m ready to do things on my terms again.

Here’s an old video wearing the Devon tee and working on some orders to let you know: I’m alive! I’ve been getting a lot of emails asking when I might be taking orders again and the truth is not just that I don’t know, but I’m also having a mental struggle about whether I want to. To address the practical side of things: I’m in the middle of prepping for a major relocation and restructuring. It could be months before I’m settled in my new spot and operational again, so I do not have an estimated date yet. I have a couple of ideas rolling around my unstable brain to better structure things. Unfortunately they all require me to channel more energy into my social media presence. This is a source of enormous anxiety for me. I still haven’t made a reel. I still don’t know how to use IGTV. I don’t know how to ‘stay relevant’ amongst the shifting landscape of what is visually prioritized here, but more importantly I don’t want to. I never wanted to be a company that pushed selling. Back in the old days, that we all miss, that was possible. Now we have to play The Game™️ I don’t want to play the fucking game. Every time I log on I see bodies edited to comical proportions. I see fake content presented as real. I see stolen designs. I see ads for laxatives marketed as dietary aids. I see edited ‘before’ & ‘after’ pictures selling procedures to ‘get the look’ of your favourite insta-celebrity. I see ‘fitness’ accounts claiming their results are hard work when in reality it IS hard work…. And surgery…. And steroids. (Continued in comments👇)

I started PT yesterday for my wrist. I have pretty good finger dexterity, but my range of motion is absolute garbage. Apparently still better than usual at this stage, but still garbage. I’m not cleared to do anything weight-bearing with that hand yet, and my iron weighs 5lbs. I shouldn’t even be doing this probably, but I’m bored as hell so here I am using an elaborate system of pinning things to the board so I can press a batch of hems left handed. In another week or two I start using a 1lb weight to rebuild strength on that side, so I’m still not sure exactly when I’ll be able to work as normal/take more orders. I’m no expert, but if I have to heft 5lbs for hours every day I’m estimating another month, minimum. At least I can brush my own hair again though! 😎

The first thing most people want to know when I told them I broke my wrist rollerskating is why I was rollerskating in the first place. I was trying to have fun, but I suppose I should know better! At the ER they told me it was a clean break, the bones were well aligned, and it would just need a cast. I broke it on Memorial Day weekend, so they put an awkward splint on it, stuffed me full of pain pills, scheduled me with orthopedics the following Monday, and sent me on my way. At orthopedics, the idea that it was a clean break seemed to cause some amusement. It was not a clean break. It was not aligned. They stuffed me full of more pain pills and scheduled me for surgery in a week. I’ve done a lot of stupid things over the years, many of them were painful. I can confidently say the week I spent waiting for surgery with a broken wrist was the most painful week of my life. The week following surgery was a close second. The surgery I had is called Distal Radius Fracture ORIF (Open Reduction & Internal Fixation) That’s the official name for “We have to screw a plate to your bones to hold them in place now, you idiot. Why the fuck were you rollerskating? You’re not a child anymore.” So anyway. Obviously the fracture is my dominant side, because how else would this play out? I’m at the point now where I can use my right hand to steady things but I still can’t (and shouldn’t) grip anything or do anything weight-bearing on that side. I can stop my toast scooting across the counter while I butter it though! Next week I get my stitches out and a less serious splint put on. I also start physical therapy at that time. I only have a few of you in the queue, and I will be contacting you later today or tomorrow to discuss options. Obviously there will be a delay in re-opening the checkout. I’m not sure exactly how long it will take before I can work again, but I will not be rushing things since this is the more important of my two wrists & I am very interested in regaining a full range of motion and making as complete a recovery as possible. TL/DR Don’t try and have fun. You’ll be sorry.

Update: checkout closed! For those of you who managed to hit the 2 minute window, damn you’re fast! I’ll be opening the checkout in 15 minutes! As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ll be taking a VERY limited number of orders, so be sure to pre-load your carts and be ready to roll as soon as the clock hits 12. I will not be able to add anyone afterwards. Thank you all for your continued support, I’m looking forward to having a moment or two for my own projects this month and also maybe a few moments to do nothing at all 😎

I will be opening our checkout for orders next Friday (🥳) but will only be letting a handful through (😩) I know, it’s always hard to get in our queue, but I’m here to tell you that this time will be *drumroll* even harder! When I moved to the US 20+ years ago I laughed out loud at my first interviewer when she explained vacation time, because I genuinely thought she was joking. She was not. In the UK it is a time honoured and fiercely guarded tradition that every summer we perform a mass exodus of our little island and make a nuisance of ourselves somewhere warmer for a week or two. We can do this because we have legally protected paid vacation time. If you go for a haircut you’ll be asked; ‘going somewhere nice on your holidays this year?’ If we had a constitution, it would be written in it. Here, the lack of time off seems almost a badge of honour. People are guilted out of using vacation hours by employers. They’ll proudly talk about their uncle who never took a sick day his entire career. My friends, this is not healthy. This is not ok. For the time being I do not have the spectre of commercial rent hanging over my head, so I’m going to use this limited time offer to my advantage in an attempt to try and remember why I even liked sewing in the first place. You’ll perhaps have noticed that my feed is unusually quiet. I touched on the reason for this in my last post, but it has not resolved itself. The comparative silence is the unhappy result of a complete and all-encompassing burnout, the like of which I have never experienced before. I am a shell of a human. I barely eat. I barely sleep. I am simply going through the motions. I’m sure the pandemic and its related stressors contributes to this, but the real reason is that I have, quite simply, been hustling too hard and for too long. So set your alarms and sign up for the countdown in our story today because you’re going to have to Wild Bill Hickok that shit next Friday to get a spot. And I don’t want to hear any complaints about it otherwise I’ll make it even harder next time, you hear me?* *Kidding. I love you all and appreciate your patient support of my little venture 💖

This is another one of those times I considered an Instagram friendly post full of acceptable excuses. Then I thought about why I’ve been so absent lately. It’s primarily because of a strong desire to reconnect with ‘real life’ and distance myself from the increasingly toxic and disingenuous content presented for consumption. Folks, I will be delaying the next checkout opening date, and the reason for that is that I am, quite simply, burned the fuck OUT. Between pandemic SAH orders, lengthy supply delays, packing, downsizing, moving my studio, taking care of some home repairs with a suddenly more urgent schedule and the fact that I haven’t taken a holiday in 20 years... my mental health and I needed a moment. I am obviously operating with a greatly reduced team, but inheriting the quantity of orders that I took with a bigger studio and staff in mind. With a couple of notable exceptions most of you have been overwhelmingly understanding , and from the bottom of my heart; thank you. My brain is so overwhelmed that it’s taken me 3 weeks to set up my home workspace and grade a pattern. Work that should’ve taken a few days at most. I have not been able to think clearly. I have stared at one particular wall for hours at a time in silence. For two days straight at one point. (S/O to that wall. Appreciate you 💕) I have 7 cats, and my Pieface has been my ride-or-die for 13 years. She’s coached me through more meltdowns this month than all of those years combined. I know we are all struggling, but despite my list of ‘it could be worse’ gratitudes’ this last year I’ve powered through every obstacle thrown my way with the disconnected stoicism that I reserve for only my most trying times. As soon as those studio boxes landed in my home my brain gave me a sideways look and said ‘oh hey friend. You know all those meltdowns you’ve been putting on the backburner? That’s cute you thought I’d forgotten. Here they are all at once. Isn’t this fun??’ So, that is where I am. This week I hit my stride, but what I’m trying to say is that, this month, my brain made me take a deeply inconvenient moment for myself. She’s functional again, everybody! 🥳

Yesterday was bittersweet. This space, and what it meant, was so important to me two years ago. Those of us who fall into the slow fashion category and try to grow beyond our home studios often run into the same problem. People simply do not sew anymore. It is a dying skill. Fast fashion; the same thing we push back against has rendered it unnecessary. Why learn to mend a hole when you can buy a replacement for so little? Why make a shirt from scratch when the fabric costs more than a completed garment? I have trained everyone who’s ever sewn for me. I don’t object to that on a personal level, I love my people with all my stitched together heart, but the learning curve is long, and I’m a nitpicky overlord, so it takes months and months for me to declare someone ready. This process makes it near impossible to control production speed as a business. It was time spent that I did not have. I didn’t have it at my smaller studio, and I certainly didn’t have it at my bigger one. And so today, on the first day of 2021, I will spend it setting up my home studio as I regroup and begin putting the wheels in motion for my next stage. As I’ve hinted before, I have a plan, and it’s ambitious and exciting. When Helvak was born, it was an accident. It grew organically from a single hoodie. I didn’t know how to run a clothing business and there’s so many things I wish I’d done differently from the beginning. This chapter is a clean slate. A new beginning. I poke my aching foot into this year and hope it lands on solid ground.

EDIT: CHECK OUT IS NOW CLOSED. Thank you for your orders! Start your engines, checkout is open!! As you probably know, we are in the middle of a studio relocation, so we are taking only a few orders this month. We know it’s frustrating for some of you who’ve been trying to get in the queue for months, and we apologize sincerely, we are doing the absolute most that we can on all fronts, we promise. Fingers crossed for a more predictable 2021!

**UPDATE** Our winner is @absolute_terror !! Congratulations!! Shoot us both an email or a DM for specifics on claiming your prize! Thank you for your support and participation everyone, we love and appreciate you all so much! 🥳 This year has been The Worst™️ so to throw some positivity back into the world @churchofsanctus and I have joined forces to create this awesome giveaway! A grand total of $500 store credit, $250 from each of us. One entry per person, please, and yes, we both ship worldwide! 🥳 Rules: Follow us both Tag a friend in these comments Add the first image of this post to your story and tag us there too That’s it! We’ll announce the winner Jan 4th ✨ (Store credit valid for Ready To Ship garments ONLY. It cannot be used for Made To Order or samples. Swipe up in my story post for my RTS section)