From the Urbana News Gazette
In the past four or so years, the media have reported that sewing, particularly among Generation X’ers and younger craftsters, has become the new knitting. Sewing machines and patterns are “flying off the shelves,” due in part to the popularity of television shows such as “Project Runway.”
Urbana resident Nora Miller, who is 24, isn’t even aware that sewing is trendy. To her, making clothes and other items is her business.
She has been sewing, starting with doll clothes, since she was 5 years old, learning how to do it couture-style from her grandmother, Doris Miller. “She’s really been the inspiration for me,” Nora said. “She can make anything. It’s been really nice to have that.”
Giggle Gaggle – the name of her home business – offers mainly wearable art for mother and child, mei tais and slings for carrying babies and one-of-a-kind diaper bags.
She sells her Giggle Gaggle products online (www.gigglegagglebaby.com) and at Market at the Square, the Saturday farmers’ market outside Lincoln Square Village in Urbana. She will be there through Aug. 4; after that she will resume her studies as an early childhood education major at Eastern Illinois University, and will be too busy to sew.
Miller does her sewing in what used to be her childhood bedroom in the corner of the home she and her twins share with her mother, Meg Miller, and stepfather, Scott Dossett. She uses a Viking sewing machine and does a lot of the finishing by hand, on the hems and French seams, for example.
“I’m using high-quality textiles so I feel the product should be high-quality,” she said. “I want to take more couture sewing classes and focus on those kinds of things. The things my grandmother taught me are really couture techniques. Everything she taught me is really the way it’s supposed to be done.”
Related Link: Sew to Success: How to Make Money in a Home-Based Sewing Business
No comments yet.