Kate English’s Marengo Sewing Studio on Felch St. offers classes and a social sewing night on Thursdays. “People are hungry for the community of it all,” she says. | Photo: J. Adrian Wylie
Self-taught sewist Kate English is empowered by the notion that the fashion industry is “not going to make me feel like my body is not good enough or correct, because I can just make what fits me,” she says. “I can do it myself, thank you very much!”
Marengo Sewing Studio is, for her, a suitable way to unfurl that practical hobby into a new career. “I saw a need, because it is what I wanted to exist,” she says.
From a spacious segment of a former factory on Felch St., it offers apparel fabrics for what she calls “elevated basics,” patterns from indie designers, a large format pattern printer, supplies and accessories, Janome sewing machines, classes, and a social sewing night on Thursdays.
“People are hungry for the community of it all,” English says. “Sometimes people want that time carved out where they know that they’re expected to show up, and that they’re not going to be interrupted by their kids, their phone, their work, and they’re just taking the dedicated time to learn this thing and to be with other people.”
The Toledo native had long envisioned becoming a business owner at some point, a dream that took on more urgency after her divorce. An art history major and mother of three, she was working at Spun, the yarn and fiber crafts store in Kerrytown Market & Shops, often parking along Felch a few blocks northwest. The vacant space next to Ann Arbor Distilling Company wasn’t listed online, but she noticed a for-lease sign and connected with Rob Cleveland, who owns the old brick building as well as the distillery and tasting room.
“It was great!” was her impression. “It has a parking lot, but it’s still close to downtown. With the little patio tables and food trucks on the weekends … there’s this natural little community, which just felt perfect.”
She bought her checkout counters and shelving units from Downtown Home & Garden. “It’s a bittersweet sort of thing, because I hated to see them go. They were one of my favorite shops in town,” she says. “But I’m really happy that I get to have pieces of that in the store.”
Adding to the industrial chic ambiance is a steel display table inherited from her grandmother, who raised eight children by herself after her husband died when English’s mother was just a year old. The table is thought to have come from his family’s business, the now-defunct Napoleon Creamery.
Pauline English, who passed away a decade ago at ninety-six, “was a force to be reckoned with,” her granddaughter recalls. “She was a little woman who was just very strong, and she was like a second mother, so we were incredibly close.”
From her longtime home on Marengo St. in south Toledo, Pauline relied on her foot-powered treadle sewing machine, an example of which is on display at the store named in her honor. “She had incredible style and made things last decades and decades,” English says. “As a younger person, [she] had been given hand-me-down clothes from wealthier relatives, and as was probably common in the time she knew how to unpick them and rework them and alter them to fit her.”
Beyond the family example, English developed her sewing skills at various camps, where she networked with many of the designers whose patterns she now carries, as they tend to provide better instructions than the big commercial brands.
One such designer, Rae Hoekstra, is now her studio manager, coordinating classes for all skill levels. The former schoolteacher “makes patterns for women and children and is known for being very size-inclusive,” English says. “It’s an extraordinarily helpful support to have.”
Marengo’s fabric offerings may fill a local niche, especially given the 2025 demise of Joann Fabrics and Crafts’ physical stores, even if Joann’s didn’t stock “the quality or the selection that a lot of garment sewers want,” as English believes.
Related: Oak Valley and Valley View Joanns Set to Close (Feb. 2025)
She favors primarily natural fibers and appealing weaves—including Oxford, denim, twills, knits, batistes, and cotton-linen blends—and recently acquired dead stock from Detroit-based clothing maker Soft Goods, known for its all-American supply chain.
“We see videos and snippets and photos of other people and the beautiful things they made, and then we’re just holding our phones in our hands, and there’s no joy in that really,” English observes. “Very basic things—learning just to sew a button on, or to hem pants if they’re too long—it surprises me when people discount their ability to just figure that out, and it’s not terribly difficult.
“It just takes time and a little bit of confidence, and then maybe someone to show them how, but when you’ve made something, you feel immense pride in it.”
Marengo Sewing Studio, 220 Felch, ste. 2. (734) 492–3799. Wed.–Sat. 11 a.m.–7 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Closed Mon. & Tues. marengosew.com
Got a marketplace change? Email [email protected].