Welcome to my website!

Spokes & Stitches was conceptualized in late 2019 after I finished my master's degree in education. For three long years, I worked a full-time job while pursuing graduate school part-time. With my evenings and weekends suddenly free again, I instinctually returned to my lifelong passion for sewing and patternmaking.

I focused on my own wardrobe at first, building up a stash of soft, mostly knitwear pieces that were office-appropriate but still comfortable and versatile enough to withstand my 2-mile bicycle commute. In early 2020, I began hosting small workshops for friends in the empty storefront space on the first floor of my apartment. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic threw a wrench in my plans, and the expansion of my small business was tabled as I navigated the new demands from my office job, which had transitioned to work-from-home.

Here we are in fall of 2020, and I am starting to pick up the pieces from where I left off in getting this thing off the ground earlier this year. Plans have changed, needs have shifted, and the types of services I had planned on offering initially (which were mostly in-person lessons and workshops) had to be reimagined for this new reality. At the same time, the home crafting industry is currently booming, and I am absolutely delighted to see more folks of my own generation and younger taking an interest in sewing their own clothes. I am feeling SO READY to jump back into this industry and connect with all of the amazing idealists and visionaries who are re-examining their relationships to what they choose to put on their bodies.

For me, designing and sewing my own clothes has always felt like an act of defiance. Choosing to take steps toward a self-made wardrobe means refusing to support an industry that thrives on global wealth disparities, labor exploitation, and economic insecurity. Making clothing that is custom-designed to fit your own body and lifestyle and all of your beautiful quirks is an act of radical self-love (1). And though things are certainly uncertain right now, I've had a nagging instinct to persist in getting this business up and running, and be open to whatever form it takes.

Thank you for joining me on this journey!

Much love,

Ruby

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(1) For more on radical self-love, I highly recommend the book The Body is not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor.