It’s in her blood
Issue #25
Diana Rupp quit her corporate job to follow in her mother’s DIY footsteps by creating Make Workshop
By Rebecca Flint-Marx
Published: September 1st, 2005 | 1:36pm
Walking into Make Workshop is a little like walking into your grandma’s sewing closet. Fat piles of multicolored yarn, half-finished tote bags, a choir of sewing machines, and lengths of ribbon abound in a state of artfully managed chaos. But unlike your grandma’s sewing closet, Make Workshop owes its existence to Diana Rupp’s willingness to sleep in her 1972 Volvo station wagon.
“It got to the point where I was like, ‘I will live in my car rather than go to a corporate office one more day,’” Rupp says. She’s reminiscing in the lower Manhattan studio of Make, which serves as a classroom for all things crafty. As one of her two Chihuahuas dozes by her feet, Rupp recalls the years she spent working in the media and advertising — before realizing she had to make a break for it.
Living in San Francisco at the time, Rupp moved to New York in 2001 and started Make Workshop “right away,” supporting herself with freelance prop styling, part-time library work, and by teaching knitting and sewing classes. She found a space for the Make Workshop studio the following year, and now Make is home to an impressive variety of arts and crafts classes. In addition to sewing and knitting, Make Workshop students can learn everything from batik and block printing to silkscreening and shoemaking. Perhaps most importantly, the classes are lead by professional crafters — in addition to her regulars, Rupp also has arranged guest stints by the likes of Sublime Stitching’s Jenny Hart and crewel queen Katherine Shaughnessy of Wool & Hoop.
DIY culture runs in Rupp’s blood. Her great-grandmother was a milliner who taught Rupp quilting and crochet. Her mother, judging by Rupp’s description, could give Martha Stewart a run for her padded hangers. “My mom was incredibly crafty,” Rupp says with a mix of admiration and incredulity. “She sewed her own prom dress, hand-churned butter, made Barbie outfits. She even made those sugar diorama eggs, which is totally sick.” Evidence of Rupp’s mother’s influence is present at make workshop — the sewing machine she acquired at the age of 14, sits under a table. “If this place burned down, that’s the only thing I’d save,” Rupp says. “Though it would probably survive the fire!”
In addition to opening a second workshop space this year, Rupp also is hard at work on a sewing book. It will undoubtedly be full of the same brand of easygoing but authoritative advice she dispenses to her students, whether she’s talking about slip stitching or starting a small business. “All of the experts say you should have six months of savings to start up a business,” Rupp says. “That’s not going to happen. You need to be kind of fearless. If you know you will never be homeless, then there’s nothing to keep you back.”
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For more information, visit makeworkshop.com.
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