I LOVE this dialogue!! I’ve had an eye on Threads for a long time—as a member of the staff and a fan before that. In all these years nothing has peaked the interest and response from our readers quite like the original article about Brooke DeLorme. We lovingly refer to it as the DeLorme storm.

The excitement generated by sewers expressing different points of view is thrilling and has always been delivered with great enthusiasm. As an editor, I can promise you we read your posts online as well as the many letters that come to us other ways. And, if anyone is keeping score—both for the original article and the current posted version, the tally of pros and cons is tied.

I was part of the team that advocated including Brooke’s story in Threads six years ago. She wrote to us and sent photographs with samples of her work. (I encourage all of you to make it a personal goal to send a proposal for an article to Threads—you never know what might happen. See Author Guidelines under “Magazine” in the red band above.) Brooke’s proposal was full of ideas, charm, youth, and sunshine. Her garment labels, her ingenuity, her sewn letterhead inspired us. We kept coming back to her package because it made us feel good—maybe not in its traditional perfection, but in its total freedom.

It’s great to see Brooke’s growth—maybe not on the pages of Threads but in this lively and opinionated (and free) electronic medium, where we can all participate in redefining the sewing community. Threads isn’t dictating what’s right or wrong here, we’re laying a topic on the table for discussion. In another six years I hope we take another look at Brooke.

In the spirit of supporting anyone who sews I want to thank those of you who uphold good form in constructive comments. In a few days these posts will disappear under more recent opinions, but I hope the passion of this discussion continues. If we all agree, how can we grow?

Judy Neukam