life is not a start-up
Somewhere along the way we started to believe that we could optimise our way to happiness. A score for sleep, a routine for rest and a pathway for our children. Our lives run according to ideas that were meant for business plans, not people.
I started By You because sewing and making offer a gentle reminder that most things worth having are at least a little hard won. That they have value precisely because they require effort. The kind that makes achievements feel earned.
We make things and run workshops that offer a way out of impossible perfection. Fun and a little challenging. Things that encourage us to refocus. To spend time doing things for their own sake. To rediscover effort without the stress.
Because I believe making things that don't really matter helps us reclaim the things that do.
Yve x
Not another tech-bro
I taught in primary schools for over 12 years. I spent the next ten doing teaching part-time and raising my children full-time. It was around that time that I started sewing, just for me.
I started to run a few sewing workshops. I watched people who struggled to focus or make connections grow in confidence and volume. Saw hands that moments earlier twitched for technology find focus in the steady back and forth of needle and thread. Sewing didn't really matter. It offered a way back to the things that did.
So I started making things that invite anyone to take a break from perfection and celebrate a life less optimised. To set their own standards and find the joy in doing.
Because when you do that, time takes care of the rest.
HAND MADE BY MY HANDS (OR YOURS)
Everything I make is cut, stitched, finished and assembled by hand, in small batches.
Laundered European linens. Velvet ribbons. Cotton threads and calico.
No two are quite the same.
And that's rather the point.