New Year, New Talent
The York Merchant would be nothing without our team of talented, unique merchants. The work that they’ve put into their spaces and into our marketplace as a whole is truly valued, and we’d like to use this platform as a way to highlight those individual talents. Each week, you will meet one of our team members on a more personal level, and learn more about their businesses and passions. We are excited to introduce you to the true backbone of our original crafter’s marketplace.
This week, Sarah Gahr from That Stitch B’tch shares her story with us!
Growing up, Sarah was a bonafide crafter. She got her start early on from frequent visits to her grandparents house, where she and her family would spend all of their time crafting together. Her mom taught her to sew at an early age, and Sarah’s passion for sewing continued on throughout most of her childhood. It wasn’t until she went away to college and lived in a tiny dorm room, that her sewing machine just could not follow her. After college, Sarah moved to New York City to an even tinier apartment, and it wasn’t until the recent pandemic hit and Sarah moved back home, that she rediscovered her love for sewing.
With her childhood sewing machine in her possession once more, Sarah began creating masks for friends and family, and remembered how much she truly loved sewing. After producing about 200 masks, she began to expand her sewing projects into other areas, and started creating hair accessories to match her masks.
Sarah spent much of the past year working full-time remotely during the day, and sewing at night with her mom. She and her mom have always been close, but spending this year sewing together in quarantine has brought them even closer. After hitting what Sarah deems all the “quarantine cliches,” including fostering (and ultimately adopting!) a dog, they finally decided to start their own business together. This past fall, Sarah launched That Stitch B’tch, opened her own Etsy store, and began selling collections of coordinating headbands, scrunchies, and masks.
Since the beginning of That Stitch B’tch, Sarah has expanded her work to include earrings, hats, scarves, and baby headbands. While she’s forever grateful that creating stylish face masks helped her get her start in the business, she’s hoping to soon be able to phase out her most popular product as the world ultimately returns to normal once again in the near future.
Sarah discovered The York Merchant through fellow merchant, "Button Works by Joseph." She instantly fell in love with the concept of the marketplace, and after seeing the space, was able to get her booth set up in just two weeks! A portion of everything Sarah sells from That Stitch B’tch goes to The Sentencing Project, which is an organization that works for a fair and effective U.S. criminal justice system. She also donates a portion of her proceeds specifically from The York Merchant to New Alternatives, whose goal is to “increase the self-sufficiency of LGBTQ+ homeless youth and young adults by enabling them to transition out of the shelter system to stable adult lives.” Sarah says she never fully felt comfortable taking profit from masks because they are so necessary, so she appreciates being able to pay it forward in some way, especially during times like these.
Sarah believes that no matter what, you have to embrace the positive. The world handed us all a curveball, and what initially started as Sarah’s attempt to help her friends and family stay safe, ultimately led her to creating her own business and putting her in a position to help even more people. That Stitch B’tch is truly a mother-daughter duo (though Sarah’s mom gladly gives her all the credit!) Sarah calls her mom an intern as a joke, but fully admits she couldn’t do any of this without her.
