Hello! And apologies for taking a bit of a blog break. It was an exciting summer, filled with travel, Agency projects, site updates, and just a little bit of rosé, and after Labor Day I found myself needing some extra time to remind myself what The American Edit is all about.

Today you’ll find a slightly updated site and over time I hope you’ll see an updated TAE – over the last year I’ve tried a lot of things, and am realizing what this site is, and what it is not. And while the core focus of sharing the best of American made will never change, I hope to spend the next few years not only introducing you to incredible product and brands, but also furthering the conversation around building a business, consuming thoughtfully within constraints, and finding your own success. I’m so thankful that so many of you take time to read this site each week and I will do my best to continue to add value to the conversation.

On the blog front, we’ve cleaned things up and simplified; I’m hoping you will find the site an even more useful resource for all things American made.

Most notably, The A-List. You’ll find many new brand additions, a pin-pointed map (this is a work in progress – bear with me, my geography skills are weak at best!), and a cleaner search categorization. I’ve also included boutiques for the first time, and am excited to share more shop profiles going forward.

I’ll be back next week with one of my favorite topics… jeans!

Let me know what you think! Have a wonderful weekend!

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In which I go through all 63 pages of the Martha Stewart nominees so you don’t have to.

The Martha Stewart American Made Summit is coming up (last year’s recap!) and with that comes voting for the American Made Awards. I have a huge amount of respect for the time and attention devoted to promoting American made across all MSL channels and always look forward to seeing the finalists.

But, there are 63 pages of finalists, and the categories are helpful but not always clear, so I find the user experience to be a bit overwhelming.

To make it a little easier for all of you and to better support my favorite makers, I spent some time going through each and every page this week… and quickly realized many TAE A-List vendors were finalists! As a reminder, the A-list features my favorite brands – brands that I personally buy, recommend and have experienced myself. These are some of my very favorite brands and makers, and I’ll be happily voting for all of these finalists over the next month… I hope you will join me!

You can vote up to 6 times a day, but you do have to register. The A-list nominees, in alphabetical order:

A Piece Apart (Feature coming soon!)

Annie Williams (Feature coming soon!)

Cotton & Flax (feature)

Fort Standard (Feature coming soon!)

Grado Labs(Feature coming soon!)

Hackwith Design House (feature)

Keith Kreeger Studios (Feature coming soon!)

Maison du Soir (feature)

Maryanne Moodie (feature)

The Object Enthusiast (Feature coming soon!)

Paper Chase Press (Feature coming soon)

Rebecca Atwood Designs (feature)

S.W. Basics (feature)

Susan Connor New York (Feature coming soon!)

Whit (Feature coming soon!)

Looks like voting will keep me busy this month! Let me know if you are attending the Summit this year… I haven’t decided yet, but would love to meet you if I do end up going!

*Note – Food purveyors are a huge focus for Martha Stewart but are not included on TAE. I think the craft food movement is incredible and support it as much as I can, but it is not a focus for this site. I also only included true makers as opposed to stores and resellers. If I inadvertently left an A-list brand that is also a finalist for the MSL Awards off of the list, please let me know!

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A pertinent reminder.

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A worker at Pamela Love’s New York Studio.

“Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” U.S. Department of Labor

Workers at Shinola’s Detroit factory.

In the next 4 months, many of of us will spend more money on consumer goods than the rest of the year combined. Let’s honor the American worker today – and every day – by doing our best to buy American made wherever and whenever possible.

In case you missed it, I shared these images along with many other amazing American made brands in my 4th of July post for Barney’s…

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