I visited Tracy McElfresh of https://www.tracyssewingstudio.com/ recently.   I know Tracy spends a lot of time teaching people to sew.  I asked her how she learned.

“My grandmother came from Puerto Rico to New York City and sewed in the garment district there.  She would bring fabric remnants from work and use them to make all of my mother’s clothes.   So as I was growing up my mother didn’t want to just go to a store and buy my clothes.  She taught me how to make clothes by deconstructing old clothes.  I would go to thrift stores and buy things that were very inexpensive, take them apart, and reassemble them into clothes that I loved.”

“So I grew up sewing, and I then I taught other people to sew while also working at all kinds of other jobs.  I worked in a daycare and in a library and as a nanny, but when the nanny job ended I decided that from now on I was only going to work at the thing I love the most – sewing.”

In 2012 Jesy Anderson and I wrote a business plan and opened a shop in Dayton’s Oregon District called Sew Dayton.  We sold fabrics and sewing supplies and we gave group classes.  That was a great experience but in 2016 we decided to split up and we now each have our own sewing businesses.  Jesy runs Needle Ink and Thread and I’ve opened Tracy’s Sewing Studio”

“My business has two major parts.  I teach and I do alterations.  Most of the teaching is here at Rosewood, although I do some one-on-one teaching in people’s homes.  The alterations are primarily formal wear – bridesmaid’s dresses, mother of the bride dresses, homecoming and prom and things like that.  My customers buy things online or off the rack and I make it work for them.   That dress over there is for a burlesque dancer who’s been a great customer.  She has a special show coming up and wanted me to alter a dress she just bought.”

“I also make a garment every week for myself.  A poet can’t have too many poems, an artist can’t have too many paintings, and a dressmaker can’t have too many dresses.  Sometimes I try things that I know will challenge me.  You see those Simplicity Patterns on that wall?  I’ve collected more than 900 old dress patterns and I love making clothes using those vintage styles.”

“I’ve been involved with the Rosewood Arts Center for more than 7 years.  I volunteer there, I teach sewing there and I’ve been a student there.  As a student I’ve taken classes in belly dancing, tap, portrait photography, ISO Photography, Watercolor, Chinese Brush Art, Fine Art Oil Painting and drawing, and each od those classes has contributed something to my skills as a dressmaker.  Rosewood is also the location of my sewing studio.  I occasionally sew at home but I do all of my alterations here at Rosewood.  This studio isn’t large, but it has everything I need.”