Sewing Arts Center was originally crowned Bay Cities Sewing Machine Co. and first opened its doors in 1955 on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. In 1975 the shop passed from father to daughter, Barbara Kasprinski, and moved to ½ block from Sewing Arts Center’s current location. For 25 years Barbara and her husband, Fred, continued to serve the sewing community proudly, operating what was to become an even more successful sewing machine sales and repair shop.

Then, in November of 1997, on a whirlwind tour of every shop looking for the perfect sewing machine, Russell Scott found himself walking through the doors of Bay Cities Sewing. Working his way through the machine inventory, he made the dive into a top of the line Husqvarna Viking sewing and embroidery machine. Nirvana! Finally, the perfect buttonhole every time! (He continues to be smitten!) After 3 wonderful years of shopping, teaching and working, Russell purchased the business on April 1st, 2000. The shop immediately took on a new look (and a new look every few weeks thereafter…), a new name, and a new style. Formerly sewing machine sales and repairs only, Sewing Arts Center began modestly with 12 bolts of fabric (now over 3000), 4 types of thread (now over 60), a few classes (now over 150 sessions per trimester), and a few notions to walls of buttons and notions (I have no notion how many!)

Why Sewing Arts Center? Well, frankly because Russell “groups” well! He and the excellent people that work with him crave community and creativity, and find both each and every day in a sewing shop at the corner of 34th and Pico in Santa Monica, CA, of all places! The cool thing is that everyone sews. It brings community and diversity together without pretense. It transcends sex, color, age and status – all those itemizations that in some way or another can separate us. Everyone sews at the same table, and the shine that shows up on someone’s face when at last a textile becomes more than a fold on a bolt and expresses itself in a garment or a drapery panel or a quilt – well that shine, that brilliance is priceless. That canvas of creativity breeds in Russell and the entire Sewing Arts gang enormous satisfaction to know that in some way, they participated in making the community more of a community, and that in some way, the entire Sewing Arts Center gang helped in unlocking someone’s creative potential.

And yes, Barbara and Fred are still around, but spend the majority of their time cruising the Caribbean, the Panama Canal, Alaska – just about anywhere a ship will take them. But you’ll find Russell and Becky, Yolanda and Ted, Judy and Iris, Chris and Aubrey, Sue and Shaerie, Peggy and Louise and dozens of amazingly passionate and wonderful friends each day at Sewing Arts Center.

Come on in! You could be sewing!

Keeping you in Stitches, Russell Scott and the Sewing Arts Center Gang.