"The workshop is not where I build furniture. It is where I find out whether a design actually works."
The Question Every piece begins with a problem I want to solve. The Stitch Table began as a reaction to a question I kept asking: why does a natural void in wood need to be filled?
The dominant answer for the last decade has been epoxy, poured resin rivers that seal the gap, add color, and turn a structural challenge into a decorative feature. I wanted to find a different answer. One that treated the void not as a defect to be corrected, but as a design element to be resolved through craft.
This is the part of the process that product development taught me: the idea is a hypothesis. Making is how you test it.
Material as Constraint The Stitch Table is built from multiple solid hardwood slabs joined into a single continuous top. Where the slabs meet where gaps, checks, or voids occur, I use traditional inlays, modeled off bowties or butterfly keys, cut and fitted by hand.
The bowtie is one of woodworking's oldest structural solutions. It bridges a crack, arrests movement, and holds two pieces of wood in tension. It is honest about what it is doing. The epoxy river covers the problem. The "stitch" solves it and leaves the evidence visible.
The Commitment Where modern production furniture conceals its joinery behind veneers and pocket screws, the through tenon announces itself. The end grain of the tenon becomes part of the composition. You can see exactly how the piece is held together, and that legibility is part of the design.
I cut these joints by hand, mortise chiseled to the line, tenon fitted until it moves through with resistance but no force. When the joint is right, you feel it before you measure it. Wedges driven into the tenon end lock it permanently, drawing the joint tight as the wood moves seasonally. No fasteners. The joint tightens with time rather than loosening.
Making as Thinking Each stitch is hand-fitted to its specific location. The recess is routed and chiseled to match the key exactly, no gap, no filler, no tolerance for slop. The contrast between the tie and the slab wood is a design decision: how much visual tension do you want? How much do you want the joint to announce itself versus recede?
These are the decisions that drawings cannot fully resolve. You make them at the bench, with the actual material in front of you.
This is a slow practice by design. Each piece is made to order, one at a time, in my Connecticut studio. The lead time is honest. The result is furniture that was designed to solve a specific problem and built to hold that solution for a very long time.