meet lauren

Teaching the joy of making, one stitch at a time.

I stitched my first stitches around 8 years old resulting in a glorious blue and white Easter dress with matching hat, and it was ~immediate~ sartorial love.

Turning yards of fabric and thread into something I, or my numerous dolls, could wear hypnotized me and continues to make me giddy to this day. Seriously, the joy has not stopped, even on days when a seam ripper is in my hands more than a needle.

With my (now recovering) perfectionist personality, I spent years churning out item after item and yet not wearing hardly any of it. 

It took me years to learn, but sewing is more than following pattern instructions and making stitches.

Once I really believed I could sew anything I wanted, my world transformed into being both designer and consumer.

Anything I could imagine making was possible. If I wanted to wear a balloon parachute turned into an evening gown, I could!

I spent days and weeks spent obsessing over minute fitting issues. Or my nights staring at the ceiling wondering if I should browse Etsy for a new set of buttons that would better complement my chosen fabric. There was SO much to learn! And I had to rediscover what I actually liked, not what the shops & trends told me I was supposed to like. 

This merry-go-round had made my head and world spin, and I needed a BREAK.

In spite of kicking and screaming about how quilting was LAME, I made my first quilt. And then proceeded to quilt for the next year because, somehow, sewing those little squares of fabric together gave me the peace of creativity that I needed.

After that year in quiltopia, I returned to sewing with a new perspective on making your own joy.

But perhaps most importantly, it taught me that sewing existed outside of *only* making clothes (and was FUN).