After a long time off, I’ve decided to restart publishing my blog “Studio Photos.” I’ll post the text of Tracy McelFresh – Dressmaker here today and tomorrow, but if you want to see all my photos you’ll need to go to https://billfranz17.com/
I visited Tracy McElfresh of Tracy’s Sewing Studio LLC 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 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”
