The First Spark
That first thing you ever tried to make still lives somewhere in you, even if it fell apart or got lost. It sets a tone. It reminds you what it feels like to not know what you’re doing and doing it anyway.
For me, it was a dress made out of a super weird poopy brown felt/polyester that I got from my grandmother’s stash of vintage fabrics. The felt was probably more appropriate for a decorative pillow sham. It didn’t sit right. The darts didn’t lay flat. It was stiff, with no movement at all.
And do you know what I did with it?
I wore it to a wedding, with a huge freaking smile on my face.
You have to celebrate your small, ordinary creative wins. The button that stays on. The page that finally prints correctly. The stitch that suddenly makes sense. These are the victories that don’t get shared but subtly change how you see yourself.
That dress was the first thing that I had ever made by myself that didn’t fall apart. The fabric was all wrong and I took that lesson with me. The only thing that mattered was that I finally did it, all by myself, and got it done. It was a big win.
→ Get early access to future posts and behind-the-scenes notes by joining the newsletter.
Continue reading on Patreon…
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.
