Making things may well have saved my life. It certainly saved my liver.

I joined the ranks of 20somethings enamored of all things DIY during the spring of 2012. Why? Simple. I quit drinking and needed a way to kill the extra hours I'd forgotten existed in a day.

I live smack dab in the middle of an every-night-is-Friday-night kind of neighborhood. And that neighborhood rests in Washington, DC, a city where happy hours are practically mandatory for career advancement and stores are more likely to run out of beer and wine than bottled water before a blizzard. It's not an easy place to clean up your act. And my liver and brain REALLY needed some housekeeping.

I started out sewing, which offered a panacea for kicking withdrawals after my party-girl days. It engaged my creative side. It woke up the part of my brain that keeps me entertained and distracted when my soul needs it most. It gave me fabrics and patterns to obsess over and notions to shop for when I needed to be thinking about something -- anything -- besides the fact that it was a Friday night and everyone I knew was at a bar. And most importantly, I think, it gave me a way to meditate. The rhythm of pressing, tracing, stitching ... it's DIY zen.

Within a year, I wasn't just following patterns ... I was designing my own stuff from scratch and cooking up the kind of insane-but-weirdly-wearable outfits I'd only dreamed of in the past. The penchant for creation expanded, and before I knew it, I was dabbling in all kinds of things -- plastics, clays, metalwork. It was like addiction, but healthy. This was passion.

My sobriety date is June 7, 2012. Since I traded bottles for bobbins, beads and the like, I've come to embrace making clothes and accessories as a saving grace. It's my way to unplug the constant tweet and chirp of day-to-day life, create something, and find a little peace. This store is my way of sharing a little slice of that peace with you.