A Farewell to the Studio Space, but Not Hands Occupied

A blond woman packing several boxes. — *As I taped up the last of my studio boxes, I thought I’d be remiss not to document the end of a space where I shot so many photos, including my book. 👍🏻*

Hi everyone! It’s been 3 months since my last post, but that’s okay. It’s been a season of a lot of unanticipated change. At a time when I’d been planning on releasing my first collection (more on that in a moment), my husband and I ended up buying and moving into our first home. Before mid-August we had no plans to do so. 😅 Things moved quickly, but we feel very lucky!

Two days before a truck was booked to move our stuff to our new house, I got a call from the landlord at my studio space for Hands Occupied. They informed me that the studio rental spaces weren’t working out as planned, and someone will be taking over Startwork Studios, as they’re called, soon. All tenants had to be out by December 1. Lucky again, I was already moving to a house with a room earmarked for my studio space. Unsurprisingly, few of my fellow renters were coincidentally moving their studios, and especially not during the holiday sales season. There was even an article in Block Club Chicago about the situation.

For me, this means I’m going to go ahead and officially tap out on 2022 in terms of output for Hands Occupied. I was already struggling from having to move my studio back in February within the studio spaces – studio 1 to studio 6 after a recurring ceiling leak. These studio spaces were the only affordable place I could find in my part of Chicago, so I rolled the dice on a recently-vacated space that didn’t appear to have a history of leaks. I made do as makers do, and all I can do is shake my head and move on.

The Rest of 2022

Speaking of making do and moving on, I don’t plan on abandoning my collection or other projects I’ve got in the queue, but for the rest of 2022, I’m taking the space I need to decompress from the bizarre, discouraging experience that became the studio space. As I unpack my studio again, I’ll focus on the amazing times we had in the Hands Occupied Studio during weekly Craft Nights when that was still possible in 2019-2020, rather than the awkward ending of the space.

Take a look inside the new Hands Occupied Studio in Chicago, learn about when it's open to the public, and share your ideas for workshops and events you'd like to see in the new space! #handsoccupiedstudio — *Some of the smiling faces who came to the Hands Occupied Studio warming in February of 2019. ❤️*

I want to spend this holiday season enjoying being a “regular maker.” I want to make felt Christmas stockings for my family to celebrate moving into our first house. I want to work on my cooking a little. I want to be able to catch up on knitting for me. So that’s what I’m going to do! I’ll keep up with comments and messages at least 1-2 times a week in case you’ve got holiday knitting questions, and I might share tidbits, particularly the stockings since they’re crafty. But this year I’m just going to let myself be in the moment during the holidays. Again, I’m lucky.

Happy Holidays,

Heidi