Name: Robin Levine

Residence: Bloomfield Hills

Family: Husband, Martin Begun; sons Evan, 17, Dylan, 13

Art: Yoga bags, books

Robin Levine knew exactly what she wanted as a graduation gift from high school

— and it was nothing like what most 18-year-olds thought they needed. She didn't

want a car or her own apartment or a huge chunk of cash. She wanted a sewing
machine.

Her mother had taught her to sew when she was a girl, and Levine loved it. She
even made her own clothes.

Then, as a young adult, she became interested in yoga. The stretching left her

limber and stress-free; the yoga bag was another story. "It was unwieldy," she says.

At a yoga conference, she noticed a handmade bag that looked comfortable, easy

to manage. When she got home, Levine made her own.

"I made the pattern," she says, and then just started sewing. She went to a fabric

store and sorted through remnants. "I wanted something that's pretty; I'm not just
thinking about utility," she says.

So she picked upholstery fabric (with rich, nature-like colors: deep blues and

quiet browns) and added piping and tassels to the carrier, so the bag was not only

comfortable, it was easy to carry and elegant. It was even amazingly utilitarian:

Owners can fit not just a yoga mat but a towel, a toiletry or two, a coin purse and
keys inside.

An engineer, Levine had no problem creating her own pattern for the yoga bag.

She likes imagining how a flat object will look in 3D and dealing with the most

remote of details. She likes precision.

It's this same attention to detail that Levine puts in her handmade books. She

took a book-making class with a friend, then went right to work. She makes the cov-

ers and hand-sews paper in between with stitches that are clean and perfectly sized.

She loves the paper textures, the warm colors, the fineness of the stitching. "And

that everything has to be measured perfectly."

Name: Carol Rock

Residence: West Bloomfield

Family: Husband, Steven; daughters Jessica, 17, Samantha, 16

Art: Wire design

Most people look at mesh wire and see nothing but a screen that keeps bugs out.

But not Carol Rock.

"I was at a gallery and I saw a nude made out of screen," she says. The moment

she left, she headed to her local Home Depot and loaded up on screen of her own.

Rock can shape screen into anything, molding it, bending it this way and that, so

that when she's finished, those tiny bits of wire have become a dress, or a face, or a

butterfly that gracefully dances in the wind when hung from a tree.

She dreamed of being a hairdresser or a dancer when she was a little girl. but after

majoring in fine arts in college, Rock became an art teacher. She worked at a private

school, where the classroom would be filled with papier-mache and paint and happy

students. After marrying, she worked at her mother-in-law's lingerie store.

These days, Rock can let her creativity reign. She not only makes wire works of

art, she has created stained-glass designs, on either side of her front door, of profes-

sional quality. While sitting in a doctor's office, she was browsing a magazine and

read about a woman who makes one-of-a-kind shoes. So she bought a plain pair of

high heels, then covered them with sparkles and cutout golden shapes.

Open the cupboards in Rock's otherwise highly organized clutter-free home and

you'll discover crafts and projects of all kinds. "You come into this home," she says,

"and you know you're going to make something."

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