Is anything ever really “done”? That question haunts my creative space. Over the years, through different versions and homes, repeated moves, messes and reorganizations, I feel like I can never conquer that one final pile. You might not see it in the photos, but trust me, dear reader, the pile is there — it’s just hiding in the closet. As I sit here, a pile of assorted detritus is likely decamped at the top of these studio stairs; boxes and projects and supplies that have drifted throughout our house and been rounded up and deposited, waiting to be carried back down to the studio and dealt with.
My studio in its current iteration is about four years old. But really, it’s much older than that. It’s the current state in the evolution of my creative pursuits, honed through almost two decades of gradual expansion and experimentation — from the teeny kitchen table in my first post-college apartment, to half a spare bedroom in the little house I shared with a boyfriend, to the bungalow where I slept in the smallest bedroom and turned the main bedroom into my sewing room.
My sewing spaces have changed as I have changed, reflecting my progress as a maker and the role that sewing has had for me. Sewing evolved from a minor hobby in my life to the center of it, from an extra with no lines to the lead actor. My studio spaces have mirrored that evolution: at first small enough to keep stored away in the back of a closet, now something that fills a floor of my home. But it’s probably safe to say there have always been piles.
I grew up with well-fostered creativity and was always making something, but my personal sewing journey didn’t start until after college. I went to film school in Los Angeles, and while browsing Craigslist jobs one day between production gigs I saw one titled “Part Time Craft Associate.” I didn’t know what a craft associate was, but it sounded like it could be pretty fun. I ended up getting the job at a place called The Urban Craft Center, a studio where members rented space and equipment like a gym, and where anyone could sign up for a class.
As a sales associate sitting behind the counter, while knitting, quilting, garment sewing, soap making, candle making, needle felting and other classes went on around me, I could listen and watch and learn through osmosis. My brain exploded with all things crafty. I started a blog (it was 2009, after all) to track everything I was learning. I called it Miss Make.
That job led to friendships that led to other jobs and opportunities, as such things go, and my life path forked forever away from film production. These opportunities included teaching lots of sewing classes in the LA area; working at the corporate headquarters of SVP Worldwide, the maker of Singer, Viking and Pfaff sewing machines; writing tutorials and sewalongs for Colette Patterns (now Seamwork); and becoming the brand manager for fab- ric companies Cotton+Steel and Ruby Star Society. Along the way, I developed a quilt pattern side hustle, named after my first blog Miss Make, a side hustle I recently took full time.
Early in our relationship, my now-husband and I took a trip to Washington, D.C. We stepped into a yarn shop and I was struck by how the front room was set up — amidst all the gorgeous yarn, there was a beautiful feather sofa, a coffee table, a chandelier and a fireplace. It was so cozy and inviting, but also modern and elegant. It could have been someone’s living room. I realize to knitters this is probably not a very earth-shattering setup, but to a sewer confined to desks and electrical outlets, it felt revolutionary. All the sewing spaces I had seen, or at least been influenced by, had an industrial, almost classroom-like feel. But what if a sewing space didn’t need to look like a craft room? What if it looked like part of your house? “You could do this,” I remember my husband telling me. It made me excited, and it stuck with me.
When we moved into our current home in 2019, a 1962 brick ranch in Atlanta, the partially finished side of the walkout basement was destined to become my studio space in our first renovation project (for the house and for us personally).
It was just getting going when the pandemic shut everything down in early 2020. I was fortunately able to keep working from home; and during that weird and scary time when no one really knew what the next week would bring, I worked in my living room surrounded by boxes while contractors worked downstairs, completely sealed off from the rest of the house. When I was eventually able to move into the studio, it became my safe haven for the next few years, my remote office; and after that, the base of my home business.
In planning the renovation, I tried to remember and capture what it was that so impacted me in that yarn store years before. I wanted it to be an inviting room first, and a sewing room second. I hoped it would be a place where I would want to spend time even if I wasn’t sewing. I also wanted it to be a place that had everything in thoughtful resource and position if I were to sew — a room that, from the ground up, was set up as a place to make things.
My studio is through a door just off our house’s front entryway. As you reach the bottom of the stairs, you pass the quilt design wall to the left. Directly ahead is a row of cabinets with all my garment fabric, organized by type, weight and color. There’s also a bit of yarn.
In front of these cabinets is a love seat and little table where, ideally, I can sit and do handwork or work on a laptop, and maybe watch an episode of something. Most of the time, though, there is a pile — half-finished items; fabrics I’ve pulled out because I got excited about making something; things that need to go upstairs; things that need to be put away. You know the type.
Beyond the love seat on the wall opposite is a gas fireplace and another set of cabinets that house my Miss Make quilt pattern inventory (there is currently a seven-pattern lineup). Behind the loveseat is a desk for computer work, and behind that is the second half of the room — the sewing workspace.
At the center of the workspace is a custom cutting table I built after years of learning what I’m looking for in a cutting table: large, counter height, easily movable, full of storage. It is made up of two halves, each an Ikea Kallax bookshelf on casters with an Ikea tabletop mounted on top, with three pieces of 2×4 in between. The 2×4s create a narrow space where I can store my acrylic rulers.
On the underside of the tabletops, I installed latches that allow me to connect the tables together to create one big cutting surface. If needed, I can unlatch the tables and easily roll them apart to create two smaller tables. I most often do this when shooting video content and needing to access an overhead camera. I can also move the whole thing off to the side if I need a lot of floor space, like when I’m basting a quilt.
At my sewing machine table, I am able to leave out both my regular machine and my serger, and I can roll between the two of them on a desk chair, which is awesome for hopping back and forth while making garments. On this table you will see Bobbin Cat, a vintage cookie jar where I store bobbins. Years ago in LA, a dear friend saw the cookie jar in a thrift store and knew I had to have it, and Bobbin Cat has been with me ever since.
On the back wall of the space is one of my prized possessions — a metal pattern cabinet that houses my thread and all my garment patterns. A friend in Atlanta bought two of them when Hancock Fabrics went out of business, and was looking to sell one. It still had a pile of promotional postcards in the bottom drawer when I got it. I spray-painted it white (it took what felt like 937 coats) and mounted it on casters. It weighs one million pounds and is the worst thing ever to move, and I will never get rid of it.
Around the pattern cabinet is what I call my strawberry wall. I like to collect little bits of strawberry art, a mini collection that started with some special things from my late grandma: a strawberry pin and a little strawberry painting. The painting hung in my great-grandma’s tiny lake cottage retirement dream home, a place called Strawberry Hill that didn’t overlap my lifetime but which I’ve heard stories about. One strawberry led to another, and now it’s a bright spot that I really enjoy adding to every now and then.
Along the back wall is a closet with general storage and, usually, whatever stubborn piles I’ve been unable to fully vanquish. That’s also where I keep my quilting fabric, which I’m methodically trying to work through and destash.
Astute observers will notice there’s one thing I didn’t mention on my studio tour. In July of 2023, I became a mom. I am still learning how to collect and sort through the pieces of who I was before my son was born and reshape them into a new version of myself, a project that I suspect will go on for quite some time.
He has a playpen in my studio that he will usually tolerate for a little bit, but he mostly wants to be involved in whatever I’m doing. I have watched him grow and change — with both cliché and genuine amazement — over his first year, an experience new for me but old as time. I’m excited to one day be able to make things with him, if he wants to. I hope he does.
My studio is filled with echoes of all my past creative spaces, and by extension, my past selves. It’s my first LA apartment at the little kitchen table I painted myself, where I struggle to thread my sewing machine and where I keep my fabric scraps in a paper lunch bag. It’s the Nashville primary bedroom turned sewing room where I stay up way past midnight, listening to loud music 19 with my cat and drinking wine, single and free for the first time in my adult life. It’s the Atlanta base- ment home business where I muster every ounce of new-mom strength just to pack an order, where piles of project stuff lay untouched for a year.
I will probably never fully conquer the piles, a thought I’ve always found frustrating. There will probably always be the threat of more displaced stuff looming at the top of the stairs, and I’ll probably never feel like my studio is “done.” But I’ve been trying to let that go a little bit, to not let the elusive and unrealistic dream of ill-defined completion interfere with the enjoyment of the present, and to accept that my creative space will always be a work in progress.
Because really, so will I.
Is anything ever really “done”? That question haunts my creative space. Over the years, through different versions and homes, repeated moves, messes and reorganizations, I feel like I can never conquer that one final pile. You might not see it in the photos, but trust me, dear reader, the pile is there — it’s just hiding in the closet. As I sit here, a pile of assorted detritus is likely decamped at the top of these studio stairs; boxes and projects and supplies that have drifted throughout our house and been rounded up and deposited, waiting to be carried back down to the studio and dealt with.
My studio in its current iteration is about four years old. But really, it’s much older than that. It’s the current state in the evolution of my creative pursuits, honed through almost two decades of gradual expansion and experimentation — from the teeny kitchen table in my first post-college apartment, to half a spare bedroom in the little house I shared with a boyfriend, to the bungalow where I slept in the smallest bedroom and turned the main bedroom into my sewing room.
My sewing spaces have changed as I have changed, reflecting my progress as a maker and the role that sewing has had for me. Sewing evolved from a minor hobby in my life to the center of it, from an extra with no lines to the lead actor. My studio spaces have mirrored that evolution: at first small enough to keep stored away in the back of a closet, now something that fills a floor of my home. But it’s probably safe to say there have always been piles.
I grew up with well-fostered creativity and was always making something, but my personal sewing journey didn’t start until after college. I went to film school in Los Angeles, and while browsing Craigslist jobs one day between production gigs I saw one titled “Part Time Craft Associate.” I didn’t know what a craft associate was, but it sounded like it could be pretty fun. I ended up getting the job at a place called The Urban Craft Center, a studio where members rented space and equipment like a gym, and where anyone could sign up for a class.
As a sales associate sitting behind the counter, while knitting, quilting, garment sewing, soap making, candle making, needle felting and other classes went on around me, I could listen and watch and learn through osmosis. My brain exploded with all things crafty. I started a blog (it was 2009, after all) to track everything I was learning. I called it Miss Make.
That job led to friendships that led to other jobs and opportunities, as such things go, and my life path forked forever away from film production. These opportunities included teaching lots of sewing classes in the LA area; working at the corporate headquarters of SVP Worldwide, the maker of Singer, Viking and Pfaff sewing machines; writing tutorials and sewalongs for Colette Patterns (now Seamwork); and becoming the brand manager for fab- ric companies Cotton+Steel and Ruby Star Society. Along the way, I developed a quilt pattern side hustle, named after my first blog Miss Make, a side hustle I recently took full time.
Early in our relationship, my now-husband and I took a trip to Washington, D.C. We stepped into a yarn shop and I was struck by how the front room was set up — amidst all the gorgeous yarn, there was a beautiful feather sofa, a coffee table, a chandelier and a fireplace. It was so cozy and inviting, but also modern and elegant. It could have been someone’s living room. I realize to knitters this is probably not a very earth-shattering setup, but to a sewer confined to desks and electrical outlets, it felt revolutionary. All the sewing spaces I had seen, or at least been influenced by, had an industrial, almost classroom-like feel. But what if a sewing space didn’t need to look like a craft room? What if it looked like part of your house? “You could do this,” I remember my husband telling me. It made me excited, and it stuck with me.
When we moved into our current home in 2019, a 1962 brick ranch in Atlanta, the partially finished side of the walkout basement was destined to become my studio space in our first renovation project (for the house and for us personally).
It was just getting going when the pandemic shut everything down in early 2020. I was fortunately able to keep working from home; and during that weird and scary time when no one really knew what the next week would bring, I worked in my living room surrounded by boxes while contractors worked downstairs, completely sealed off from the rest of the house. When I was eventually able to move into the studio, it became my safe haven for the next few years, my remote office; and after that, the base of my home business.
In planning the renovation, I tried to remember and capture what it was that so impacted me in that yarn store years before. I wanted it to be an inviting room first, and a sewing room second. I hoped it would be a place where I would want to spend time even if I wasn’t sewing. I also wanted it to be a place that had everything in thoughtful resource and position if I were to sew — a room that, from the ground up, was set up as a place to make things.
My studio is through a door just off our house’s front entryway. As you reach the bottom of the stairs, you pass the quilt design wall to the left. Directly ahead is a row of cabinets with all my garment fabric, organized by type, weight and color. There’s also a bit of yarn.
In front of these cabinets is a love seat and little table where, ideally, I can sit and do handwork or work on a laptop, and maybe watch an episode of something. Most of the time, though, there is a pile — half-finished items; fabrics I’ve pulled out because I got excited about making something; things that need to go upstairs; things that need to be put away. You know the type.
Beyond the love seat on the wall opposite is a gas fireplace and another set of cabinets that house my Miss Make quilt pattern inventory (there is currently a seven-pattern lineup). Behind the loveseat is a desk for computer work, and behind that is the second half of the room — the sewing workspace.
At the center of the workspace is a custom cutting table I built after years of learning what I’m looking for in a cutting table: large, counter height, easily movable, full of storage. It is made up of two halves, each an Ikea Kallax bookshelf on casters with an Ikea tabletop mounted on top, with three pieces of 2×4 in between. The 2×4s create a narrow space where I can store my acrylic rulers.
On the underside of the tabletops, I installed latches that allow me to connect the tables together to create one big cutting surface. If needed, I can unlatch the tables and easily roll them apart to create two smaller tables. I most often do this when shooting video content and needing to access an overhead camera. I can also move the whole thing off to the side if I need a lot of floor space, like when I’m basting a quilt.
At my sewing machine table, I am able to leave out both my regular machine and my serger, and I can roll between the two of them on a desk chair, which is awesome for hopping back and forth while making garments. On this table you will see Bobbin Cat, a vintage cookie jar where I store bobbins. Years ago in LA, a dear friend saw the cookie jar in a thrift store and knew I had to have it, and Bobbin Cat has been with me ever since.
On the back wall of the space is one of my prized possessions — a metal pattern cabinet that houses my thread and all my garment patterns. A friend in Atlanta bought two of them when Hancock Fabrics went out of business, and was looking to sell one. It still had a pile of promotional postcards in the bottom drawer when I got it. I spray-painted it white (it took what felt like 937 coats) and mounted it on casters. It weighs one million pounds and is the worst thing ever to move, and I will never get rid of it.
Around the pattern cabinet is what I call my strawberry wall. I like to collect little bits of strawberry art, a mini collection that started with some special things from my late grandma: a strawberry pin and a little strawberry painting. The painting hung in my great-grandma’s tiny lake cottage retirement dream home, a place called Strawberry Hill that didn’t overlap my lifetime but which I’ve heard stories about. One strawberry led to another, and now it’s a bright spot that I really enjoy adding to every now and then.
Along the back wall is a closet with general storage and, usually, whatever stubborn piles I’ve been unable to fully vanquish. That’s also where I keep my quilting fabric, which I’m methodically trying to work through and destash.
Astute observers will notice there’s one thing I didn’t mention on my studio tour. In July of 2023, I became a mom. I am still learning how to collect and sort through the pieces of who I was before my son was born and reshape them into a new version of myself, a project that I suspect will go on for quite some time.
He has a playpen in my studio that he will usually tolerate for a little bit, but he mostly wants to be involved in whatever I’m doing. I have watched him grow and change — with both cliché and genuine amazement — over his first year, an experience new for me but old as time. I’m excited to one day be able to make things with him, if he wants to. I hope he does.
My studio is filled with echoes of all my past creative spaces, and by extension, my past selves. It’s my first LA apartment at the little kitchen table I painted myself, where I struggle to thread my sewing machine and where I keep my fabric scraps in a paper lunch bag. It’s the Nashville primary bedroom turned sewing room where I stay up way past midnight, listening to loud music 19 with my cat and drinking wine, single and free for the first time in my adult life. It’s the Atlanta base- ment home business where I muster every ounce of new-mom strength just to pack an order, where piles of project stuff lay untouched for a year.
I will probably never fully conquer the piles, a thought I’ve always found frustrating. There will probably always be the threat of more displaced stuff looming at the top of the stairs, and I’ll probably never feel like my studio is “done.” But I’ve been trying to let that go a little bit, to not let the elusive and unrealistic dream of ill-defined completion interfere with the enjoyment of the present, and to accept that my creative space will always be a work in progress.
Because really, so will I.
