Tour Our Workshop - 3833 Steele St. Unit C

The Winter Session workshop is located in Unit C of 3833 Steele Street in Denver, Colorado. We’re on the north side of town, about a mile south of the dog food factory by the highway and a mile north of the Denver Zoo.

Our building is part of a light industrial park that was originally built during WWII as a medical supply depot. It’s two rows of brick warehouses, one city block wide and sixteen long. This land used to belong to the Arapaho Indian Nation but now it’s owned by a real estate development company called ScanlanKemperBard.

Some of our neighbors include a breath mint factory, a fireplace installation company, and one of those places where they drive you around to different marijuana stores in a party bus.

We have a 5600 square foot slice of the warehouse numbered 3833. The previous owner cut it up into four lettered sections and we’re in C. Here, we design, cut, sew, finish, and ship every item we sell.

Not all of that space is ours. We only need about a third and the rest is divided  up between a coffee roaster, an apron company, a leather bag maker, a blogger, a pattern maker, and a pair of architects.

We’re in the front of the building, and the first thing you see when you come in are the large cutting tables next to the windows. This is Cutting Corner, where we roll out and cut fabric for whatever we’re making. Garrisons, Backpacks, Dopp Kits, and Aprons—everything has a pattern.

Behind that is the Sewing Village. We have six older straight stitch industrial sewing machines along with a serger for overlock stitching and a very large walking-foot machine we call Hans.

Hans was originally designed to sew horse saddles but we use him mostly on our leather handles.

The back corner is the Laser Cave. That’s where our 60 watt laser cutter/engraver lives. It helps us cut small leather pieces, cardboard, or even wood. But not vinyl, that’s toxic in a laser cutter.

And in a little alley on the other side of the wall is Press City, population: one hydraulic press. We use metal dies and 27 tons of pressure to cut out larger leather pieces or thick stacks of fabric. We cut pieces for about 40,000 face masks on this machine.

Then there’s our Shipping Station where orders are packed, labeled, and sealed for delivery. It’s home to one of my favorite machines, Carl, the tape dispenser. Roy found him in the dumpster outside but he works as good as new.

Up above it all is our break area on the mezzanine. From here you can get a good view of the whole place.

3833 Steele St. Unit C isn’t Winter Session’s first home and it probably won’t be the last but it’s home right now and we’re happy to be here.

We hope you can come visit us soon.