Carrie Jarvis has had a passion for sewing since she made her first stitch at the age of nine. Now, the owner of The Top Stitch, a Garland District shop that offers sewing classes, fabric, sewing machines, and patterns, she says she's able to share that passion every day.

The Top Stitch occupies a 1,700-square-foot space at 3808 N. Monroe, near the corner of Garland Avenue and Monroe Street. It's filled with more than 500 colorful bolts of fabric, refurbished antique furniture displaying do-it-yourself craft books, sewing patterns, and samples of sewing projects employees of the shop have made from the patterns sold there.

The shop's name is a term used to describe the final stitches on a garment that give it a "professional, finished look," Jarvis says.

She says that when she opened The Top Stitch three years ago, her goal was to sell "more exciting fabrics that spoke to the younger population and the young-at-heart." While she believes the unique fabrics and basic sewing classes she offers help bring in younger patrons, she says her store's customer base encompasses all ages of sewers, from children to the elderly.

Jarvis says The Top Stitch is one of the only brick-and-mortar shops in the Northwest that offers an extensive collection of printed fabrics designed by Amy Butler, a fabric designer known for her colorful and vintage-inspired designs.

"A lot of people knew these fabrics, but they couldn't find them locally," she says. "They would have to order them online. That is how I got started."

Jarvis says the shop serves a niche within the sewing market because most of the patterns, fabrics, and books sold there aren't generally available at big-box craft stores.

"I would describe it as a vintage, shabby-chic and modern style," she says.

Jarvis says she is a registered dealer of Janome brand sewing machines. The store sells regular straight-stitch machines, serger machines—which use four spools of thread to create an interlocking stitch that completely encloses a seam, while also trimming the edge of the fabric—and embroidery machines that are computer controlled to sew preprogrammed letters, designs, and patterns onto fabric.

With a range of experience seemingly in every aspect of sewing, Jarvis says she was driven to teach others how to sew.

"I would consider myself an expert," she says, listing some of the handmade projects she has completed, including a down jacket, clothes for herself and her children, quilts, home decor items, and handbags.

"This is a fun job, let me tell you," she says. "It isn't about selling things; it's more about working with your hands. It's easy to be passionate about it when you are doing what you love."

The Top Stitch offers a variety of sewing classes, for those who are just starting out to those who are advanced seamstresses, Jarvis says. One of the classes she teaches for beginners, Sewing 101, goes over a range of basic sewing techniques. The shop also offers classes on pattern reading and quilting techniques as well as classes for youths aged 10 to 14. Each month the shop also has several specialty classes focused on a specific project, such as how to make a bag or apron, she says.

This month, The Top Stitch will offer a Halloween costume sewing night, on Oct. 21, at which customers will be able to bring in their projects and ask any questions they may have, and use the shop's machines if needed.

Another monthly event at The Top Stitch is what Jarvis has dubbed The Stitch Cafe, an evening potluck and sewing gathering in which customers can work on any project at the store.

Jarvis says most of the classes she offers cost between $20 and $80. The store's Web site lists a monthly class schedule, and customers can sign up and pay online, she says. The maximum capacity for most classes is eight or nine students. The site also offers fabrics and other items sold in the store to online shoppers, as well as a blog that Jarvis says she is trying to contribute to regularly.

"People don't really use phonebooks anymore. People use the Internet to find things," she says. "I felt like creating a Web site was a step that was important before even opening the store."

Opening her sewing-focused business was something Jarvis says she spent about two full years planning.

She says she became interested in sewing at the age of 9, after she visited her small hometown's local tailor, Mrs. Stewart, who lived a few blocks away from her home in Belt, Mont.

"I was immediately hooked," she says.

Mrs. Stewart also happened to be the leader of the local 4-H group, and Jarvis says she joined 4-H and was involved with it for about five years, learning advanced sewing and tailoring techniques throughout that time. During middle school, she says she began making her own clothes.

After she graduated from high school in the late 1970s, Jarvis says she initially had hoped to teach sewing as a career, but at that time, home economics classes were beginning to fade away from school curriculums. The home ec education program also was no longer offered at the university she attended, so she says she chose to go into health-care administration instead, and worked in that field for about 22 years.

After leaving her health-care job in 2002, Jarvis got back into sewing and taught sewing classes for a few years at Community Colleges of Spokane's Institute for Extended Learning, and at the Bryant Center, a Spokane Public Schools unit that serves homeschooled children.

"At that point, it became too difficult to haul all the equipment and supplies. It took a lot of effort to get things set up and I had to do this every week," Jarvis says of her time spent teaching at the IEL.

In 2005, she began formulating a plan for a business in which she could sell unique fabrics and teach sewing classes to interested community members. Two years later, her dream came true, when she opened The Top Stitch, she says.

"If you want to start something, really spend the time developing the plan. It makes a huge difference in how you approach it," Jarvis says.

She says that when she first opened The Top Stitch in December 2007, it was in a much smaller space, at 1717 W. Garland, several blocks west from where it is now. She says she moved the shop in March of 2009, after her fabric inventory and clientele base grew too large for the 500-square-foot space.

Since moving to the larger space, she has expanded her class sizes and product inventory, and has seen an interest in sewing grow here. She says almost all of the classes offered at The Top Stitch fill to capacity each month, she says.

"I feel like there has been a resurgence into hobbies," Jarvis says. "As the economy is poor, people are looking for something to do that doesn't involve shopping and buying big-ticket items. Sewing has become really popular again."

Jarvis says her short-term goals for the business include working on expanding her online sales presence and getting better at Internet blogging. She says her long-term goals are to write a book on sewing and to create her own sewing patterns.

The business has four part-time employees, including Jarvis' daughter, who runs the store's Web site from her home in Bellingham, Wash.