The Modern Lovey™
Est. 1992 · Reno, Nevada
Our Story
Some things we remember for a lifetime.
I didn't know it then, but the first blanket I made for my son would begin a journey that has lasted more than three decades. It taught me that the things we reach for every day—the soft blanket, the familiar touch, the quiet comfort—often become the memories we carry the longest.
Chapter One · 1992–1995
From one baby's blanket to something more.
Baby Garrett, 1992 — the one who started it all
The blanket I made for Garrett wasn't meant to become a business. Before long, friends were asking if I could make one for their babies too. Then their friends asked. Before I knew it, I wasn't cutting fabric for one blanket anymore. It was a dozen...then two dozen...then more than I could count on two hands.
Carol and I began making everything together—burp cloths stacked in neat piles, bibs in every color, lovey blankets by the basketful. The sewing machine ran long hours. The dining room table disappeared beneath fabric. I loved every minute of it.
We started doing craft fairs, loading the car with handmade pieces and setting up wherever families gathered. People stopped. They picked things up. They felt the fabric, ran their fingers along the satin trim, and often left with two when they'd only planned on buying one. That's when we realized we weren't just making blankets anymore—we were creating something families wanted to take home.
Garrett and Drew were very much a part of the process.
Chapter Two · 1995–2008
Wee Design. From craft fairs to the west coast.
My mother, Carol Cox, design work for an appliqué · late 1990s
In 1995, Wee Design was officially born — a name for what Carol and I had already been building together. What I made with my hands, she made extraordinary with her art. Carol drew every appliqué by hand — original illustrations she transferred to crib comforters with the precision of a trained artist. Noah's Ark animals. Woodland scenes. Designs that families kept long after their babies had grown.
Our collection grew to include flannel blankets, burp cloths, bibs, lovey blankets, crib bedding, receiving blankets, even a baby soap and spray. I handled the photography, the catalogs, and the orders. Carol drew and stitched and made everything more beautiful than I could have made it alone.
Then came the San Francisco Gift Trade Show — and everything changed in scale. We set up our booth among vendors from across the country, and buyers from baby boutiques up and down the west coast stopped at our table. They placed orders. Real orders. Wholesale accounts. Before long, Wee Design products were sitting on the shelves of baby stores from California to the Pacific Northwest.
Our booth at Swiss Days in Utah
For over a decade, this was our world. A mother and daughter, making things by hand in small batches, shipping to stores that trusted us to deliver something their customers couldn't find anywhere else.
In 2008, life asked everything of us. The studio quietly closed.
Chapter Three · 2021
Some things you never stop loving.
Janine at my machine, around 2000 — baby Drew snuggled under a blanket in progress.
I didn't plan to come back. But in 2021 I found myself sitting down at my sewing machine again — and the moment I did, I understood why I'd never sold it.
Carol was still there. In her nineties, with the hands of an artist and the patience of someone who has always known that careful work takes time. She sat with me and helped turn burp cloths inside out, one by one, the way we used to. We didn't talk about it much. We just sewed.
Some things don't need explaining.
Chapter Four · 2025
The Modern Lovey™ is born.
It was my daughter-in-law who saw it clearly. She looked at what I was making — the flannel, the satin trim, the careful batting — and said: this is exactly what modern families want. Not mass-produced. Not disposable. Something made with real hands, real care, and real intention.
She was right. The Modern Lovey™ was born from that conversation — a reimagined lovey sized for modern nurseries, modern strollers, modern life. The craft is the same as it has always been. The love is the same. Only the name is new.
My granddaughter Maeve has one. She carries it everywhere. That's all I ever wanted.
My granddaughter Maeve, with one of her many Modern Loveys
Thirty-four years of making — in pictures.
Flip through the years.
It started with a bolt of flannel.
Chapter Five · Made to Last
The Olson family. Three generations, one blanket.
Some products are made to be used. The best ones are made to be kept.
Nearly twenty-seven years ago, Nan Olson discovered our original flannel blankets here in Reno and began buying them for her family. Among the things she kept was a Cudlee — one of our original cuddle blankets, in a pattern all its own — that her son Andrew grew up with. She couldn't have known then that he'd still have it all these years later. But that's exactly what happened.
Andrew as a boy, with his Cudlee
Years after Nan first brought it home, Andrew was photographed with his beloved Cudlee and the biggest smile. The flannel still holding. The pattern still bright. Every stitch still there.
Andrew today — the very same Cudlee, kept twenty-seven years
Twenty years after that childhood photo, Andrew still has his blanket. A grown man who never let go of something made with genuine care. When Nan shared that photo with me, I sat quietly with it for a long time.
That is why I make what I make.
Jessica Reese — Nan's daughter — with Lilah and her new Modern Lovey
Nan's daughter Jessica grew up watching her brother love his Cudlee. Today her own daughters — Hazel and Lilah — have their own Modern Loveys: the redesigned blanket, newly made, carrying the same craft into a third generation. Nan came back nearly three decades later to buy them — and a new chapter of the same family story began.
Some families become part of your story. The Olsons became part of ours — and we became part of theirs.
The Olson Family
Nan Olson · Andrew Olson · Jessica Reese · Lawrence Reese · Hazel & Lilah Reese
The next chapter is yours
— Janine
Designed & handcrafted by Janine Winkelmaier · Founder, The Modern Lovey™ · Reno, Nevada · Est. 1992