If you want a custom interior from Artisan Stitchworks, get in line. The Oak Harbor, Washington, shop is already booked solid for the next four years — and it only opened a little over a year ago.
Owner Gracin Bryan still has a hard time believing it himself. “That’s crazy. We went from just having fun with it to now, a million dollar business within a year,” he recently told the South Whidbey Record.
From Diver to Trimmer
Bryan’s path to upholstery wasn’t a straight shot, he told the newspaper. A retired Navy deep sea diver, he first learned the trade at Ocala Auto Upholstery in Florida, where he was taught old-school techniques. He later co-founded First Coast Auto Creations in Jacksonville, but burned out and returned to diving.
After Hurricane Ian upended his life in 2022, Bryan relocated to Washington. Friends who had seen his upholstery work encouraged him to give it another shot — and that push led to what would become Artisan Stitchworks.
The shop started humbly in a friend’s 200-square-foot paint booth before expanding into a massive 11,230-square-foot facility on Barlow Street, where Bryan and his growing team can now work on up to eight cars at once.
Old-School Quality, New-School Vision
Attention to detail is at the heart of everything Artisan Stitchworks does. Bryan insists on using traditional methods — hand-stitched steering wheels, imported fabrics and leathers, and even drawing his own interior design plans before having them digitally rendered.
“You have to understand the old ways of doing things before you can really grasp the newer techniques,” Bryan told the South Whidbey Record.
Projects at Artisan Stitchworks are anything but cookie-cutter. A basic interior might start around $15,000, while full custom jobs regularly exceed $50,000. One customer who originally asked for a simple seat repair is now more than $285,000 into transforming his 1987 Camaro, a build named Cowboy6 in honor of his late father.
Eyes Toward the Future
With a four year waitlist and customers flying in from as far as California and Colorado, Bryan doesn’t spend a dime on advertising. Word of mouth and jaw-dropping builds are enough to keep the shop busy.
He takes the responsibility seriously too. “We’re a bank. We’re an investment firm,” Bryan half joked. “We’re taking clients’ money and putting it into an investment and they’re trusting us with hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
While Bryan is currently planning a grand opening for his new location, he’s already mulling what’s next. He hopes to turn his block into a “hot rod mecca of the Pacific Northwest” with a hot-rod-themed speakeasy and performance parts store in the coming years.
For now, though, Artisan Stitchworks is laser-focused on custom interiors — and with a four-year waitlist, they’ll be busy for a long time to come.
To learn more about Artisan Stitchworks, visit their website. You can also follow them on Instagram and Facebook.
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