My Weaving Studio Through The Years
My weaving studio in 2018
I was recently asked if I’d be able to share a tour of my new weaving studio and floor looms. While that’s definitely in the works, I’m still very much settling in, tinkering with the layout and deciding which loom goes where. So instead, I thought I’d do one better, and give a tour of my studios through the years.
Social media makes everything seem polished, professional- and instant. When you’re following someone online, it can seem like their success happened overnight, or that their business sprang out of nowhere. And if you only recently discovered my work at Christabel Balfour or here at Balfour & Co, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to guess at the long and winding road I took to get here.
2013 - 2016
A Warehouse Beside The Thames
My first studio right out of art school was in the top floor of a warehouse in Woolwich. The space had been converted into a print studio and then subdivided into units for different artists. The first year I was there, I shared a studio space with other artists and makers, before finally taking the plunge and renting a unit to myself.
In art school, I’d specialised in painting and sculpture. When I had worked with textiles, they had been large, ambiguous sculptural pieces. In this tiny studio I taught myself how to weave tapestry, and then moved onto rugs. I built my own looms, and learnt how to set up and weave on my first ever floor loom.
The studio was a close to three-hour round trip from my house so I’d leave early in the morning and get back late at night. It was freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer and the roof leaked when it rained. Each night I’d cover my loom with a tarpaulin to protect my weavings from rusty raindrop stains.
It wasn’t an easy time, but looking back it gave me valuable space to think, explore & experiment. Even though my work looks very different now, this time of experimenting helped me grow creatively and confirmed for me that this was what I wanted to do for a living.
2017 - 2018
My Parent’s Dining Room
After almost 3 years, the long commute & long hours in the studio started to take a toll. I kept getting sick because of the cold and damp, so my parents very generously offered to let me convert their dining room into a studio space. I moved my looms in at the end of 2016.
2017 was the year a lot of things started to click into place. I took Sara Tasker’s Insta Retreat course, which was a game-changer for my social media marketing and brought my work to a wider audience. I published my illustrated weaving guide, taught more workshops and got my second floor loom. And in September 2017 I had my first solo showcase in the British Craft Pavilion at London Design Fair, which led to further press, commissions and sales. That momentum carried over into 2018 where I worked on several major commissions for interior designers, hosted a live weaving demonstration at the Barbican centre & appeared on national TV to promote it!
I sometimes struggled with both living & working in my parent’s house (never a good idea to weave for days on end in your pyjamas…) But looking back, it was another place that gave me space to create. My woven work grew and expanded in those years, and the quality of what I produced improved dramatically.
This was also the period when my business finally started to break even and make a profit, enough so that I was finally able to move out at the end of 2018, and move my studio with me.
2018-2019 - An Attic in Dalston
I moved my looms into the attic of a studio complex in Dalston. I wove up amongst the rafters, looking out across the rooftops of East London.
Here I worked on more large-scale commissions, including my longest ever rug (5.6 metres long) for a client in New York. To help with the increased demand for larger weavings, I bought two more looms, and switched between them as I worked across various projects.
I also taught my first ever rug weaving workshops, and started work on what would eventually become my Geometric Weaving online course.
Working on a much larger scale and expanding my classes meant that I soon started thinking about getting a bigger space. In the end, I was in Dalston for just over a year before I moved again.
2019-2022 - 1200 sq ft in Bethnal Green
I moved into this huge split-level space in November 2019. The downstairs area housed my collection of six floor looms, as well as a kitchen, toilet and shower. Upstairs was a dining area, and office space during the week, and a space to host workshops at the weekend.
Through the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 I was teaching workshops almost every other week, as well as running my Geometric Weaving online course. I also started selling my upright rug looms online. But in the time when I wasn’t teaching or packing boxes, I worked on my looms downstairs. I slowly started exploring my own ideas again, after a long period of back-to-back commissions.
Then in March 2020, the global pandemic brought London to a standstill. I cancelled all of my workshops, and refunded almost £6000 worth of ticket sales. To cover for the loss of earnings from my workshops I threw myself into teaching online. I started selling yarn and weaving kits, and developing more online courses- and out of the stress and turmoil of Covid, Balfour & Co was born.
Balfour & Co was my focus for much of 2020 and 2021. While I did manage to squeeze in some of my own weaving and some commissioned pieces, I spent most of my time working on online teaching and packing online orders. My looms sat downstairs, collecting dust, while I worked at my desk upstairs, filming, editing and replying to emails.
In time too, the cost of renting such a large space without the financial boost from teaching in-person began to take its toll. I felt as though I was no longer really a weaver, but rather someone that ran a weaving studio. I spent all of my time helping other people to weave, or worrying about money. Much as I loved seeing my students around the world discovering a new craft, I missed weaving for myself too.
That’s why in May 2022 I gave my notice at my studio and began the long, stressful process of moving out into a much smaller space.
Today - Back To Dalston
In the end, I moved back to another space in the same studio complex in Dalston. Downsizing 1200 sq ft to just under 400 sq ft has not been easy and it’s taken me a while to find my rhythm in the new space. But I’m slowly making it a space where I can keep building Balfour & Co and at the same time, return to my own weaving.
I think it is so important for creatives to share their journeys, no matter how many twists and turns they contain. It’s far too easy to think that everyone has it all mapped out, when the reality is that things rarely go according to plan.
Even as I wrote this post, I was struck by how my own work has evolved and changed depending on the pressures I’ve experienced, whether that’s limited space, time or finances. A huge part of running a business is responding to those circumstances and always being ready to adapt and grow. Whether you’re working from a huge warehouse space or your parent’s living room, there will be challenges at every scale.
The important thing is not to compare your journey to anyone else’s, but rather to keep going and build a business - and a life! - that works for you.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this insight into my business evolution! My next post will be sharing my tips for selling your work online. I’ll be talking about presentation, pricing and finding the right customers.
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