People
Karyn Valino
Owner
My degree is actually from Ryerson’s Media Arts program, where I majored in photography. My first creative loves were paper, bookbinding, photography and collage. Along the way, I also took woodworking, stained glass and neon signmaking classes. It wasn’t until I was working in New York City that I discovered sewing and immediately fell in love with making my own clothes.
Maisy
Our dearest shop dog who saw us through the workroom’s first nine years. We could not have built such a welcoming space without her sweet guidance and company. We miss her sweet face every day.
#rememberingmaisy
Alexis Da Silva Powell
My earliest making memory is obsessively weaving construction paper. So obsessively, in fact, that I quickly ran out of construction paper and took to shredding any paper I could get my tiny hands on. Always one to encourage my creative pursuits, my mom allowed me to paint wall-sized murals in the kitchen and on the windows looking out into our backyard — worms were my speciality.
Carolanne Graham
Instructor
My education is in English Literature and Librarianship and sewing obsessions started early for me. I suffered devastation in Grade 7 Home Economics when my teacher gave me an A- on a very complicated hot dog pillow. I made 9 more cushions before I got the A grade I thought I deserved (and before the teacher refused to mark any more pillows!).
Ignacia Ibarra Black
Making stuff is in my family; we are a clan of creatives. We are painters, artists, seamstresses, knitters, fibre artists, photographers, crafters and makers of every sort of thing. I never lacked for inspiration or encouragement, and pursued every creative curiosity, since I was small.
Leo S
My great-uncle Moshe was a tailor. When he first came to Canada he sewed pockets on an assembly line for Harry Rosen. He taught me how to construct a welt pocket and that set off my admiration for technique and precision. I inherited Moshe’s scissors and they are my most beloved tools.
Julie Sinden
Instructor
I grew up with a mother who is a fibre fanatic, in a house full of yarn and fleece and looms and spinning wheels — so i was crafting from a very young age, doing everything from sewing, knitting and dyeing to needle point and cross stitch. In 2002, I set off for the mountains of BC and did a three year textile program at the Kootenay School of the Arts, a very small and eclectic, but wonderful school.
Rosa Moniz Tarle
Crafting has been with me since I was a kid. After lunch at my grandmother’s house was when she would sit on the edge of her bed and make, mend or alter a little something with a needle and thread. Showing me how to imagine a little change and how to make it happen.
Lizzy House
Guest Instructor
I think most creative endeavors start in childhood, and I attribute my start to my mother allowing me to be who I was. I was solemn, thoughtful and serious. She also let me dress myself from the time I could make moderately reasonable choices. She never made any decisions about who I was, or what I was going to be, she just let me be, and that shaped me into what I am, and how I treat my work.
Sherri Lynn Wood
Guest Instructor
"Sherri Lynn Wood teaches improvisational quilting as a creative life practice, and is considered an expert innovator and leader in the modern improv quilting movement. Her best-selling book, The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters: A Guide to Creating, Quilting & Living Courageously (Abrams, 2015), provides scores, or frameworks, for flexible patterns and creative exploration, along with practical instruction in stitching techniques and intuitive colour."