Well, 2023 is definitely a year in the books for me. I am feeling positive about really growing my sewing and quilting business / studio and have high hopes! I’d like to take this little blog post space to reflect on what I’ve done for the biz this year, and really just in the last 4 months or so.

First of all, my spreadsheet. In 2014 my teachers at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) told me I should keep track of residencies and calls for art that I want to apply for. I should note the due date, what is needed, when it would occur, how much it costs (or pays), and so on. I have been keeping up with this spreadsheet to varying degrees since then! The same spreadsheet! I have a different tab for each year. Some years I don’t apply to very many things. Other years, especially when I’ve been unemployed, I’ve applied to A LOT of things!

My spreadsheet of everything I applied to in 2023. Yellow means I applied, and never heard back. Green means I applied and was accepted. Red means I applied and was rejected.

Of the 65 things I applied for, I was accepted to 12 of them. That is about an 18% acceptance rate. At this point, I’m relatively used to it but it is certainly a daunting number. The numbers are also slightly misleading because sometimes I put things on there that are guaranteed acceptance, like applying for my business license (I got it!)

I also made an effort to track how much time I spend doing certain tasks -

Across 2 months (mid October - mid December 2023), I spent

29% of my time on homework

I’ve been taking classes full time at the community college, in Entrepreneurship and Project Management and that takes a lot of time.

26% of my time making!

The actual making of the things I sell. Cutting, sewing, pinning, ironing, etc. This limits how much I am able to sell, as I make everything myself.

25% doing other paid work

I did some random odd jobs, and started working part time at a company that makes dog coats

19% doing business admin

This blog post counts towards that! Applying for things, updating my website, photographing products, and on and on. This was what I was most curious about - I did not have a strong sense of how much time I spent on admin work, as I have never tracked it before. The last two months I would block off specific time to do admin tasks, and I wouldn’t do more admin than that. I have found that the admin tasks never really end, and it can be easy to forgo making because I am stuck in admin land. I decided I wanted to both actually know if that was true, and be more intentional about the time allotted. I think it worked out!

This has really been just in the last 3 months, but what happened with the rest of 2023???

January 2023

I made a custom couch slipcover for a family friend. I had been planning to do this project for YEARS, and when it finally came to do it, I realized there was no way I could do it solo in one weekend. So I asked my mom to come and help!

February 2023

I worked with an intern/apprentice/studiomate Mason for about a year. It was truly so fun. She would come to the studio about once a week and describe a project idea she had, and then I would help her figure out how to make it. She made so many fun sewn things in a year!

March 2023

I taught so many tufting workshops in the 1.5 years I was at my job. Really ramped up in March.

I made myself a Grainline Farrow dress. Popular amongst the indie sewists, it’s such a great pattern. The print fabric came from Gaffney’s in Philly when I worked there in 2018, and the gray is a linen from my old drapery shop job that I dyed gray.

April 2023

My grandmother passed and I spent a few days in Arizona for her memorial. My grandma was a big quilter, as is my mom.

May 2023

I made a few stuffies for new baby friends, and a hat for myself with floral and pretzel fabric.

I also made a crochet granny square vest sample! Hopefully this will come up again in 2024

August 2023

Goodbye Philly studio ~ I truly loved this space. In August I packed my life up and moved from Philly to Seattle area, where I am now learning to be a business baby.

December 2023

I made myself a stocking! From quilt squares I inherited from my grandmother (I think she was using up tiny scraps?), and the elbows and subsequent patches from an old cashmere sweater

It’s been a really hard year for me, and it’s really hard to try to run a business and sell yourself when you don’t feel 100%. I appreciate having a little space to share my process, and look back at what I did in the year, and I’m grateful that you (whoever you may be) are reading it. This little blog post doesn’t exactly feel like a well-rounded picture of me, but it shows what me as a maker looks like, and I’m proud of that. Cheers to 2023, and on to 2024~