I just turned on my space heater and pulled on my slippers. The aroma of late-night coffee hangs in the air. I can hear the wind whistle as tiny snowflakes tap against the window glass, almost in rhythm with my fingers on the keyboard. The light is low and warm. All the pets are asleep. This is my ideal winter evening.
We’re finally through January. It’s always a hard month for me professionally — the month of building calendars, lining up projects, drafting patterns, and trying to see how the year will unfold before it’s even really started. I like the newness of it, but I’m always a little anxious to get past that first hump so we can actually get on with the work.
It was a very good month for She Zine. We were able to publish four stellar interviews — with Raph Copeland of Knifetwister Records, Liv from We Might Die, Sasha from PILLOWBITER, and Maria Chaos, founder of Doll Fest out of Oakland, California.
In the Mag’s past life, interviews were the backbone of our publication, so it felt especially good to bring that element back into the fold — to sit across from people who are building scenes, not just content, and let them talk about how the work actually gets done.
As we step into February, I’m ready to start doing the things I just spent a month planning — less talking about what’s coming, more sitting down and making it real. One of my favourite parts of running a blog is the moment when the real work begins.
If you’re in Canada, you’ve probably been feeling winter in your bones this week. As I’m writing this, there’s a blizzard outside my Toronto apartment — the kind that gives you an excuse to stay in, put the kettle on, and pull a chair up to the table.
That feeling is what brought us to February’s theme, The Workshop as Shelter. This month, we’ll be talking about what happens once hibernation ends but it’s still too cold to fully re-enter the world — the worktables, kitchens, and shared corners where projects live half-finished and ideas get passed hand to hand. We’ll be building simple mending kits, setting up winter work corners, and paying attention to the small, practical ways people keep making when everything else slows down.
I keep thinking about how many creative lives don’t happen in studios with perfect light or clean desks. They happen at the end of a couch, on the corner of a kitchen table, in borrowed rooms, or in the ten quiet minutes you get before the day starts again. This month is for those kinds of spaces — the ones that don’t look like much, but somehow hold everything.
We’ll be spending time with the tools that stay within reach: the scissors that never quite close right, the mug that’s seen too many late nights, the open journal that’s half plans and half confessions. We’ll be paying attention to the small rituals that make a room feel workable — opening a window just enough for fresh air, turning on the same lamp every night, clearing a square of space for whatever needs to happen there.
There’s something steadying about making alongside other people, even when you’re not in the same place or working on the same thing. Knowing someone else is also threading a needle, sketching an idea, or wrestling with a stubborn problem at their own table, somewhere else in the cold. February, for us, is about that quiet kind of company.
We’ll be hosting virtual knit-alongs — or crochet, if that’s what floats your boat — and we hope you’ll join us.
We’re also launching a new post series called Handmade Futures, debuting on the blog and continuing on Patreon in four parts for our paid subscribers, alongside reader essays and a deep run of articles on the many shapes of a handmade life — from craftivist acts to yarn and knitting patterns that keep you company and your hands busy as we move through the last stretch of winter.
Pull up a chair. Bring whatever you’re working on. We’ll be here all month.
-AXO
AXO (she/her) is a multidisciplinary creator, editor, and builder of feminist media ecosystems based in Toronto. She is the founder of She Zine Mag, Side Project Distro, BBLGM Club, and several other projects under the AXO&Co umbrella — each rooted in DIY culture, creative rebellion, and community care. Her work explores the intersection of craft, technology, and consciousness, with an emphasis on handmade ethics, neurodivergent creativity, and the politics of making. She is an advocate for accessible creativity and the power of small-scale cultural production to spark social change. Her practice merges punk, print, and digital media while refusing to separate the emotional from the practical. Above all, her work invites others to build creative lives that are thoughtful, defiant, and deeply handmade.
