It started with a conversation.
Jordan Batin was shopping in a local thrift store when one of the staff started talking how “nobody sewed anymore.”
Batin’s ears perked up. A sewist since age 6, she had started a sewing circle with the Augusta Mom’s Club to help her meet other moms and to share her love of the craft — but she was itching to do more. So she spoke up.
“I was like, ‘We do sew; there are people here who sew,'” she said.
Fired up, she was driving away when she happened to see a “for rent” sign at a nearby storefront.
“Something made me pull in and call the phone number,” she said. “Next thing I know, I have a business.”
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She opened My Best Friend’s Sewing Room at 3850 Washington Road, 4C, in October 2014, three months after seeing that sign, and has offered youth and adult sewing classes ever since.
Although Batin had experience as a sewing educator at Jeff’s Sewing & Vacuum, she knew nothing about running a business.
“But I jumped in,” she said, learning how to run Quickbooks and use social media to market.
Word of mouth has also been important—and backing up her argument at that thrift store.
“The only time I had to put money into the business was in December 2014. This business has supported itself ever since,” she said. “There are people who want to sew, they just have to be told about [these kinds of opportunities].”
Now, Batin offers roughly 10 classes a week for children and adults, mornings, afternoons and evenings, along with a packed summer camp schedule. Within the sewing room’s pale aqua walls, brightly decked with quilts, pillows and other sewn decorative objects, students learn how to sew straight stitches and zigzags, to read a pattern, to piece together a quilt, and even to design their own creations starting from just a plain piece of paper.
“I just like to break it down, so it’s relatable to beginners of all ages,” she said.
Her most popular adult classes have been her beginner class, where novices learn to sew a simple mug rug, or coaster; and lessons on how to sew a crossbody bag or zippered pouch. Kids fill her classes on how to stitch together Harry Potter-themed projects, including a book cover replicating The Monster Book of Monsters; felt unicorn pillows; doll clothing; dolls and stuffed animals; and practical objects such as a zippered pencil bag for back to school.
“You can take something essential and just make it your own,” she said, by choosing fabrics rich in color and texture.
At a recent camp, Hayley Brickle ran up to Batin to show her the doll’s mermaid tail she’d just stitched together of purple and teal felt.
“Oh, let me see,” said Batin. “You could fold it down one more time, then sew across if you want to. But that’s up to you. You’re the designer.”
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This was Brickle’s second class at the sewing room. “I really like being in the sewing room,” she said. “I think I can be a really great sewer one day.”
“I like sewing,” she said again later, as she modeled a scrap of felt she wanted to make into a headband.
“Me too,” said student Bea Garza.
“What’s really appealing is teaching life skills,” said Batin. “My favorite thing is watching the joy on the kids’ faces when they’re done, especially when they have to turn something inside out, and voila.”
Batin also loves to give back. In her previous sewing circle, she and her friends often sewed items to donate to the Children’s Hospital of Georgia, and she still sews pillowcases for the Ronald McDonald House of Augusta and local homeless shelters, crate pads for dog rescues, chemo head wraps and more. She encourages her students to give back too. And, in the future, she wants to develop a curriculum that could be used by school educators to teach the next generation of sewists.
“My whole goal really was to do something that I loved, teaching the kids as well as adults and hopefully one day they can go on and pass it on when it’s their turn,” she said. “That’s what it’s about. Sewing with love and training the kids to sew, not just as a valuable life skill, but something to build their confidence and also as a creative outlet.”
She pointed to a sign hanging inside the sewing room: “Do what you love, and happiness will follow.”
“That’s where I am right now,” she said.
