Kathryn Yee, Dorchester
Some days it still surprises Kathryn Yee. After all, she trained in graphic design. Then she went into event planning. And now here she is, running her own retail business, selling hand-sewn cloth napkins made from found fabrics.
But she's always had a love of textiles, not to mention the ability to build a brand. And then there's the inspiration for it all: her grandmother, a Chinese immigrant who raised four children in Quincy on her wages as a seamstress.
Here, in Kathryn's own words, is how she came to create The Everyday Co.:
“From what my mom has told me, the number one seat, the first seat in a factory, means that you’re the number one sewer. And my grandmother sat in that seat.
She made clothes for us, just from her scraps and remnant fabric. And I remember she had a basement that I was always scared of, but that’s where her sewing machine was, and where she made clothes.
She made me these matching cottons shorts. So imagine a cotton short that was like a legging – with, like, not-so-beautiful fabric. And then matching vests. And no one else was wearing them, but I loved them. She also made them for my cousins on my dad’s side—she made us all these matching shorts and vests. So my company is very much just inspired by her hard work and her coming here as an immigrant and raising a family and working in a factory.
I never thought I’d be doing what I’m doing. But after I moved away from graphic design, I was doing events. And I was just noticing that I was using a lot of paper napkins for these events. We would just fill up trash bags and trash bags. And yeah, you can recycle, but I said to one of my clients, “You know what? I’m going to make our cocktail napkins for this event.”
So I got some fabric, and my mom and I started making them, and I said, “We might be onto something.”
I didn’t go to a school for fashion. I didn’t have previous knowledge of fabric and textiles. And I still have so much more to learn. But I’ve been always tactile. I’ve always been interested in the way things feel and come together to either make something to wear or use in your home.
I try to design things that are not just decorative but are really useful. My mom kept the house really simple. And so if you come to my house today, it’s: Everything has to have a purpose.
In fact, it has to have like one or two purposes before we make the decision to bring it into the home. And if it creates beauty and makes me happy – then I guess that is a purpose, too. (But) it has to have a story. It has to come from somewhere that’s special.
I just started collecting this a few years ago: menus from our travels. I think it started in Barcelona. We were at this tiny, amazing restaurant- we had no idea where we were going, and we were following our friend, and she was like “I promise this is gonna be good.” And it was in this quaint little neighborhood and the menus were hand written and hand drawn. So literally each menu, someone had, like, written in pencil and then, like, went over in marker and drew these little illustrations at the bottom.
And I was like, “This is so beautiful!” Someone took so much time to do this, and took so much pride in this.
So I asked the waiter if I could take it. And she was like, “Oh gosh no! We have, like, 25 and they’re all hand done! But I have a menu from a previous season.”
So I was so grateful. It was so beautiful and nice and worn. It has fingerprints on it. So she signed it, our waitress signed it, and then from there on, I’ve been finding menus from when we’ve gone to Japan, or it might be a great memory in Miami, or a diner in upstate New York.
And then I’ve plastered them on the wall in our house, so it’s sort of like a vignette of our travels and the memories. There’s stories for each one. And they’re not framed – they’re literally just taped right flush to the walls, so it’s like paper on the walls.”
Kathryn is pictured above at a pop-up shop in the Seaport for her company, The Everyday Co. She was interviewed and photographed by story ambassador Theresa Okokon.
The interview was then transcribed by Northeastern University student Alyssa Villavicencio, and edited for length, clarity and flow by Everyday Boston.
One last note: We met Kathryn last fall when we were incorporating as a non-profit in Massachusetts. Our name was too close to hers, which meant we had to ask her for permission. She kindly agreed. We thought she was pretty neat, asked her if we could interview her…and that’s how you ended up reading this story!
