My shoeless foot is fixed on the sewing machine’s pedal. I take a deep breath and allow my sewing instructor and stand-in grandmother, Beth Krumhansl, to guide my hands forward. In unison, we steer the fabric under the bobbing needle, ensuring the path of stitches is straight.
Krumhansl puts it in simple terms. “Sewing is like driving a car in reverse,” she says. “Steer the opposite direction you want the line of stitches to go.”
I feel Krumhansl’s hands slowly release from the fabric, and I am brought back to riding a bike for the very first time — my dad has just released his steady hand from my back, yet this time, my foot is only fixed to one pedal and the road ahead is sprinkled with pins.
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Ornate quilts surround me on the walls of Imagine That & More Studio. The Kamm’s Corners shop and school for quilting, knitting and crocheting is building a community of crafters of all ages. Seated behind a sewing machine for the first time, I am attempting to create my own place mat.
“I always say, Jesus saved me, but quilting mended my soul,” says Megan Sorn, the founder of Imagine That & More.
In 2019, Sorn experienced severe head trauma from a fall. As a result, she spent eight days in a coma. From the experience, the realization that everything can be gone within an instant, coupled with the realities of the pandemic, sparked the concept that became Imagine That & More. Sorn opened the studio space as a way to bring people of different backgrounds and identities together to craft and create.
“It’s not just the sewing and the rhythm of the sewing or the crocheting,” she says. “It’s the community that goes with it.”
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The shop focuses on building beginner and advanced skills, offering roughly 12 classes a week in quilting, knitting, crocheting and long-arm sewing machine classes. The team creates a comfortable environment for avid crafters, and they work with the greater community to spread joy through handmade creations. For example, in a recent partnership with Saint Joseph Academy, the shop created “Love Bugs” — stuffed companions for the Ronald McDonald Family Room at Cleveland Clinic Fairview Hospital.
My interest in textile crafting grew out of the blossoming granny square fashion trend. My Gen Z friends were all picking up the hobby, but I figured, what better way to jump on the bandwagon than to learn from the grannies themselves? My original goal was to make something for myself to wear, but I was not expecting an emotional and transformative experience.
“There’s something about the space that just does the healing,” Sorn says. “I always laugh. I’m like, OK, Lord, so it wasn’t really for me, it was for them.”
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As I reach the severed end of my fabric swatches, Krumhansl instructs me to turn the hand wheel on the machine to lift the needle. I flip up the presser foot and snip the thread, revealing the new patchwork textile, which is half bright yellow with white daisies and little red apples and half sage green and white gingham. Watching the magical mismatched fabrics mesh together to create a beautiful textile reminded me that Krumhansl’s mother once taught her to alter clothing to fit her petite frame.
And now she was teaching me, welcoming me into that lineage.
“There’s something about the space that just does the healing,” Sorn says of her community space. “I love coffee. I like beer. But when I sit and have my tea or coffee, it’s gone. I’ve consumed something. When I’ve sewn, I’ve made something. And then if I give it away, it is a double blessing.”
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