The United Craft Front

What in the heck is the United Craft Front you ask? It's us, and maybe you. All of us who make things, or are trying to. Those who want to get back to using our hands, and having know-how. At the DryGoods Shop, we will have studios, storefront, and most importantly, room for you to come and make things! Eventually we will have classes and hopefully host many of Asheville's fine quilting, knitting, and stitching circles. In the studio, there will be Overlap Sewing Studio and The AyBeeCees. I started Overlap after moving to Asheville in 2008. In San Francisco I had been teaching art at an amazing place (Creativity Explored check it out here , but with a four month old wild child teaching just wasn't happening. So i did some sewing, made some baby hats and tshirts, and Overlap was born. I have been sewing pretty much my whole life, and have done lots of costume work in the past. My background is really in art, but i find that the line between all that stuff is pretty blurry. So now I have a place where I can work on whatever I am in the mood for, which can vary drastically from day to day. It is all very exciting and slightly unreal.
Anyhoo, here is the link for the Overlap Etsy site, just so you can take a gander. I love to use recycled and vintage materials whenever I can...

More on the AyBeeCees and the ever lovely Jean Potter tomorrow!

What was left behind.

 

 

 

 

50 years of dust...

sounds like the name of a good song. But its what we have been dealing with for the last three weeks! Finally the first layer of dirt is off, the shelves are scrubbed clean, and now the painting and building are about to begin, very exciting...Guess I should tell you what we are doing in here.
It seems like lately we have lost a lot of hand skills. People don't sew, or build, or make things like they used to. We are gonna be place where people can not only peruse the store's local and handmade goods, but also feel free to sit down and knit, or draw on the big community table, or just chat with folks. There will be a few studios, for now Overlap Sewing (that's me, Leigh Anne Hilbert), and The AyBeeCees (that's Jean Potter, an amazing bookmaker). We will have some swap shelves for old supplies you don't want, and eventually a full line-up of classes to get us all back to making stuff to use in our lives.

Here we go...

The first time I saw the Meadow's dry goods building in West Asheville I fell in love. Not the sticky,sweet kind of love, but the old, dusty, worn-in kind. There were old pieces of rick-rack on the floor, Keds from the 60's, bolts of fabric lying on the tables, and a general feeling of disrepair that calls to me. The place was never open, so the mystery of it only grew in my mind. And then one day, it was all gone, totally cleaned out. I was totally disappointed and felt like I had maybe lost out in life. So, when I saw some applications for permits on the windows I basically stalked the owner...and now, I am opening up shop there.
Finally perserverance pays off...