About Boulevard Sew Shop

Boulevard Sew Shop offers pouches, challah covers & mini-quilts all handmade by me, Alexa Weitzman, in Queens, NYC.

About me: I started—or really returned to—sewing in March 2020 after digging out my machine to make masks. Once I reacquainted myself with the basics, I fell hard & fast. At its foundation, sewing is cutting things apart just to sew them back together. During this past traumatic year, the order & expectedness of that process has grounded me. All of our lives were cut apart & put back together. I find sewing reassuring: there's a beginning, middle & end. It's creative but also mathematical & hones my mind. It's expressionistic & yet exacting.

I love sourcing fabric at thrift stores and feeling the texture of vintage and reused materials. I love choosing what combination of fabrics to use and where to cut, sew and stitch. I love creating custom challah covers and embroidering Hebrew words on them. I love that sewing keeps my hands busy & unless it's being used to play a podcast or audiobook, keeps me off my phone. I love that at its eventual end, I've produced something tangible and I'm thrilled to be able to offer my creations to the world. 

The journey to Boulevard Sew Shop has been a long and winding one. My undergraduate degree is in painting, but my career took me down another path to a graduate degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine. After over a decade in the healthcare space, COVID happened and my career was derailed. I'm one of those moms you read about, who was pushed out of the workforce due to shuttered schools and remote schedules.

But this year, I've relished in the time and space I've had to explore my creativity again. After sharing my creations on Instagram, many said they wanted to buy what I was posting and a flicker of excitement lit up my heart: maybe this is what's next for me! A small, artistic sewing studio providing handmade goods to the world!

In the picture above is a framed photo of my dear Grandma Lisa, propped on her sewing box. Grandma Lisa was a Home Ec teacher and a skilled cook & sewist. I've spent much of my life channeling her in the kitchen, bit I now feel the legacy of her sewing and creative experience within me as I continue the journey with Boulevard Sew Shop. 

About the name: Junction. Woodhaven. Astoria. Cross Bay. Yellowstone. Francis Lewis. Queens. Northern. Lefferts. Rockaway. All Boulevards, all in Queens. Boulevard Sew Shop is inspired by Queens, the borough of boulevards.

When I was brainstorming a name for this new venture, I wanted something local, iconic, grand and yet simple and came up with Boulevard Sew Shop & it’s perfect. Thank you for stopping by!

~Alexa