There's a line I say to myself often enough that it's become the rule of the shop: What you need is right in front of you.
It started as a mantra to help me problem-solve, mostly in the backcountry, when I needed to improvise a repair, and it turned into the ethos behind how my little shop got built. Like on the cross-country motorcycle trip — need to break the bead on a tire? Use that random fence post over there as a lever to create more leverage.
For most of the problems I need to solve in this space — I need a table this size, I need this fabric to be accessible, I need those tools within reach — the answer is usually already in front of me, often hiding out somewhere within the materials and hardware I can't bring myself to throw out. Sometimes it just takes a little creativity and looking at what you've already got, to see what it can become.
People ask to see the shop, so here's the longer version. It's a one-person setup in a garage just outside Asheville, NC. It's an uncomplicated and modest setup. A minimalist blend of studio and makerspace, if you will.
So is this a factory, or what?
No, and I want to be clear about that early. What I have is a creator's workshop.
A small design studio of sorts. A space built for creation, one that's constantly evolving — here I can make samples, assemble prototypes, and find out whether an idea survives contact with actual materials. I'm set up to design and produce one-offs and small-batch gear prototypes.
Every choice in my shop is downstream of my focus on industrial design. Sure, I've helped build assembly lines to produce at volume, and worked in and with factories both domestic and abroad, but those spaces look completely different. My little studio is built to make things — mostly one at a time — constantly experimenting with workflows and assembly methods, with the goal of making the next one better than the last.
Why is almost everything in here made out of something else?
Because I have a hard time throwing out 'good' materials.
This is v4 of my studio since 2022, and nearly every table and every bit of storage in this shop has been found, repurposed, or built out of scraps. For instance — the cutting table legs are literally just the slats from an old bed frame. That's not a bit. I needed legs, there were slats, and to boot, the slats were the right length.
While I do value being thrifty, it's also become a fun creative exercise that helps me avoid defaulting to "buy the thing." The result is a shop with character. One where everything fits, because you made it fit — instead of a shop full of generic junk that doesn't quite suit your needs.
It probably helps that for as long as I can remember, I've always tried — and often failed — to fix, modify, or make things suit my needs or a particular application. At this point I've gotten pretty good at MacGyvering and making it work, which is especially handy when you're trying to fix something that broke on your bike to get out of the backcountry. A friend's cable housing exploded in one of the bends once, and we used electrical tape and a tire lever as a makeshift splint so he could still shift for the rest of the ride. Boa ripped off your shoe? Zip ties can handle that.
I've always wanted to be a sort of modern-day renaissance man, in the sense that I have experience across a wide range of craft and fabrication methods. That's a big part of what drew me to industrial design in the first place — in this business, it pays to make connections across a broad range of experience to create something novel.
For me, the key is to not go so deep down any of the rabbit holes that I disappear into one of them and forget the guiding foundations of my industrial design education. I've gotten pretty close to losing the plot once or twice on the softgoods side of things.
What do you see first when you walk in?
Left: storage rack with my bike hanging from it. Stay ready.
Right: the bookshelf, TV, and sample wall. The bookshelf isn't a work thing — it's pictures, cards, trinkets, feel-good stuff. I spend a lot of hours here, and it's nice to glance away from the computer or sewing machine and see something that sparks a good memory.
Center: my main workstation. A horseshoe-shaped setup — two back-to-back sewing machines connected by a table. The U is oriented so the open side gives access to the cutting table in the back of the room.
Why are the machines arranged in a horseshoe?
When tasks are repetitive, it saves a lot of time to minimize movement while keeping everything within reach. I've arranged my workspace around a single stool — I actually made the stool with a handheld CNC machine, but that's a different story.
From that stool, I can even work digitally with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse while still nested in the horseshoe. The shape comes from the orientation of my two main sewing machines, spaced so I can pivot between them by spinning 180 degrees, connected by a table built from a convertible standing desk and a custom top that fits the space. I'm still toying with hanging shelving beneath the main surface to keep parts bins organized on more complex assemblies.
I'm on v4 of the shop at this point. I've moved a few times, and that process has been useful — the setup and arrangement evolves each time. The room has quietly become an extension of how I work.
What you need is right in front of you. In here, that's not a saying. It's a floor plan.
Why a walking foot and a bar tacker?
The walking foot is the workhorse — a Consew 2206RB-14-7-DD, purchased new. A walking foot refers to the way the presser foot and needle move in unison with the feed dogs: it grabs and moves the top and bottom material evenly through every stitch, and it can accept the thicker needles heavy-duty thread needs. Try sewing a thick, multi-layer assembly on a home machine and you'll probably break some needles — at the very least you'll notice the layers creep, because only the bottom is moving. This thing is a beast and keeps my assemblies crisp.
The programmable bar tacker is here for exactly one job: structural stitches. Anywhere a strap or a length of webbing meets the body of a bag, that's a rated stitch, and it gets bar tacked. That joint is the one that fails first on a lot of bags. Bar tacking can be the difference between a bag that fails and a handmade bike bag that holds strong for its lifetime.
I could go on about how each machine earns its keep, but the real reason is that they run entirely electromechanically. Most industrial machines run the presser foot off an air compressor — which means a compressor cycling loudly in a garage attached to the house where my family lives. Mine doesn't need one. Quieter shop, fewer reasons for anyone to resent me.
Why is there a TV mounted across from your sewing machine?
Because I got tired of walking to another room.
It's a TV on the wall opposite the bar tacker, running off an old desktop. SolidWorks and Adobe Creative Suite live there, along with spreadsheets and meetings.
If I'm sampling and catch that a webbing length is wrong or a pattern needs a change, I just grab the Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and fix the file in real time. No walking to an office. No writing it on a sticky note for later, which means never. The problem and the fix stay inside the same ten seconds.
Same rule as everything else in here. What you need is right in front of you.
What makes a cutting table worth building instead of buying?
Fit and accessibility. Table space is coveted.
My main cut table is plywood topped with MDF, self-healing mats over that, with a frame and legs made from old 2x4s and bed frame slats. Tools and fabric rolls stay within reach.
A standard bolt of fabric runs 55 to 60 inches wide, depending on the mill. So the table had to be wider than a bolt, deep enough to reach a rack of fabric rolls at the back without straining, with a shallow shelf underneath to keep the main cutting surface obstruction-free.
Overall dimensions: 72 inches wide, just under my wingspan, by 36 inches deep, with the cutting surface at 37.5 inches. At 6'1", that's a great working height for me. It's not a massive table like you'd see in a production facility — it's one that fits my body and my workflow.
Mounted directly to the table is a simple rack with rungs that hold up to six rolls at once. Depending on the project I'll swap fabrics, but the movement stays consistent — lean over, pull straight off the roll, no extra step.
For punching out pattern shapes, sure — marking tools, straight edges, triangles, french curves, shears, razors, and rotary cutters all live within reach. But nine times out of ten I'm reaching for an X-Acto with a fresh blade. It's a simple tool that gives you a really high level of control if you trust your freehanding.
What actually earns a spot in a shop this size?
Not much, honestly. I've got a rule: no machines that cost.
Not cost to buy — cost to keep. Maintenance, proprietary software, constant calibration, babysitting automated processes, and the time it takes to understand a machine designed for planned obsolescence instead of repairability.
Injection molding machines, laser and water jet cutters, 3D printers, CNCs, 3D scanners — they're all great machines, some of which I've owned and moved on from, because you need the physical space and mechanical aptitude to operate and maintain each one, plus the materials, specialty tools, and fluids to keep it running. It can become a whole other job just keeping each machine tuned up and ready.
When I need wide-format printing, laser work, automated cutting, or 3D printing, I send those tasks out to local shops that do them day in and day out, and do them well. My time is the actual constraint. Every hour I spend keeping a machine alive is an hour I'm not designing or developing a new product, and the machine doesn't care either way.
Keeping this place down to what's strictly essential is what keeps me on the work. Which is the mantra again, from the other side — if what you need is right in front of you, then everything that isn't necessary should disappear.
Why does the light in here look so clinical?
Because I like my eyes.
If I could, I'd light this room like a fireside — warm, low, nice to be in. I can't. Instead there's a hexagonal LED kit on the ceiling that's bright and even enough that it's hard to cast a shadow in the studio.
The reason is black-on-black. A lot of what I sew is black thread on black fabric, and doing that under bad light for enough years wrecks your eyes — eye strain, cataracts. It's something I've noticed working alongside seasoned production sewers over the years, and it's the kind of thing you don't notice happening until it already has.
So the light's clinical because the alternative is not being able to see well enough to ride straight in ten years.
When the garage door's up, I get the real version for free — light, air, the whole shop opening up to what's outside it. That's the best it ever looks. That's when I remember I'm in a nice little neighborhood, not an OR.
So what does "small-batch" actually mean?
This room. That's the answer.
One person, one stool, custom tables made from leftover materials, a rule about not buying machines I'd have to babysit, and a bookshelf full of things that have nothing to do with work.
Small-batch isn't a positioning statement. It's a floor plan. It's what one person can make from one seat, and everything in this room exists to keep that number honest, instead of big.
What you need is right in front of you. I've got a whole room that proves it. See what comes out of the shop.