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Left Hand Valley Courier - Local Newspaper
The Wedding Dress, Remade / Feature Article April 2009
by Donna Currie
Donna trusted us to take apart her 1980"s wedding gown and make it into
two wonderful tops for her to wear on her wedding anniversaries. From
the skirt we made one blouse into a crossover front wrap blouse with
circular ruffles at a V neckline. We added a slight bell long sleeve to
this lovely blouse.
The other top was the bodice of her gown but we removed the sleeves and
created a bustier with slim straps to wear with jeans or skirts.
Donna says in the article:
"So you see you can wear your wedding dress again. Even with jeans."
Thank you Donna for allowing us to restyle your favorite gown and letting others know about this wonderful idea.
To read about this idea click here: Left Hand Valley Courier Newspaper
Goldivas
Lead Article July 2008
Sew Fresh Studio, Nora McCray and our services are featured on the front page of an informative site for women over 50 who are too young to be old. Rita Prangle President and Editorial director met with Nora McCray in June. Goldivas the internet magazine goal is to highlight achievements of women over 50, promote cultural change in the perception
of women over 50, to provide practical advice on career, money, fashion, beauty,
health & fitness, travel and lifestyle for women over 50, and to provide a community
forum for women over 50 to discuss our issues and solutions. Check them out at: Goldivas.com
SQE Professional Trade Journal for the Sewing World:
Front Cover and Lead Article June 2008
Sew Fresh Studio has been honored to be chosen as the front cover for SQE Professional Magazine. SQE is a magazine for over 6,000 sewing, quilting and embroidery professionals that are sewing machine retailers, educators or distributors. It features many useful articles for members, and we encourage you to check out the magazine's website where you can browse past issues.
We have put together a pdf of the front cover and our article for our clients, students and guests to view.
Boulder County Business Report
May 2008
Our support for new clothing designers includes pattern making, prototypes and business support. Read article at their web site: Here.
February 2008
We were featured as the front cover and main story for the Bridal issue. Here is the article they wrote about our services here.
PAINTING WITH FABRIC
CREATING WEDDING
DRESSES FROM IDEAS AND DREAMS IS AN ART FORM NORA MCCRAY HAS PRACTICED
FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS. OUT OF HER STUDIO IN NIWOT, SHE BRINGS DREAM
WEDDING GOWNS TO LIFE.
By NATASHA GARDNER
Sunlight floods
the Sew Fresh Studio in Niwot and splashes against the green walls and
bolts of fabric that are neatly stacked on shelves. The owner, Nora
McCray, crosses the room, weaving her way between cutting tables and
clothing forms to a dressing area. She's holding aloft a bundle of
muslin that is draped across her arms as if it's a treasure. And it is.
It's the makings of Jenny Huh's wedding dress.
For more than 30
years, McCray has turned her careful eye to crafting hundreds of
custom-made or altered wedding dresses. Her Niwot location is home base
for her couture sewing business, but also houses a sewing studio that
offers classes, alterations, rental space and more. Generations of
sewers - both men and women - sweep in and out of the space throughout
the week and in midst of this bustling traffic, McCray transforms
fabric into high fashion.
“Clothing is an art form,” she says. “We are
sculpting fabric over a three-dimensional form and there are so many
different elements involved in the lay of the fabric, the color, the
actual design lines, the fad and the fashion.”
All of these
things spin in her head when McCray meets with a bride for the first
time. The process is collaborative and the bride often arrives with
ideas and pictures torn from magazines. Armed with this information,
McCray pieces together a composite image and begins to build a muslin
(a dress prototype made from muslin fabric that will become the pattern
for the garment).
Today, Huh is trying on the muslin that McCray
has created for her. This is the fashion world's equivalent of a test
drive and it is Huh's first chance to see how the dress is evolving.
She stands still in front of two mirrors as McCray, with pins sticking
out of her mouth and a tape measure draped around her neck, circles.
McCray carefully places pins, trying not to prick Huh, to create the
garment's shape. Slowly, the simple sleeveless muslin evolves into a
fitted dress that hugs Huh's body perfectly.
“Are you feeling good about that?” McCray asks periodically.
“Yes.
Perfect,” answers Huh, as she smoothes her hands over her hips, looks
over one shoulder and then the other. Nora sits back and examines the
developing lines with a critical eye.
“I can scoot this down lower,” McCray says. She
draws a line down the side of the dress and re-pins the fabric. The
result is incredibly flattering and Huh nods excitedly.
“My mom
made our dresses as we were growing up so we always had matching
dresses on Easter Sunday,” McCray says later. The oldest of three, she
learned to sew when she was 12, and quickly advanced from making doll
dresses to hemming clothes and creating her own designs.
She
credits her mom, a bridal photographer and an early “women's libber,”
with showing her sisters and her how to pursue creative careers. “It's
what we saw,” McCray says. “She wanted us to be independent and capable
as well as artistic.”
And that's exactly what she did. After
earning a teaching degree with a background in psychology, McCray
raised her two children in the Boulder area while running a sewing
business on the side. She did repairs, hemmed jeans and taught her son
and daughter to sew. With each year, this self-taught artist's skills
improved, largely because she understands both the kinesthetic and
mechanical aspects of sewing.
“I didn't go to fashion school,”
she says. “When I was growing up we weren't encouraged to do that. I
was encouraged to be a teacher or a nurse. Women didn't have that
opportunity or I would have probably been an architect because I love
creating three-dimensional shapes.”
As a couture sewer, McCray
gets to play both artist and architect, while using her psychology
background to better understand what a client wants.
“[I work]
with my intuition to find out how to best achieve what they're wanting
in a look. Do they want to look artistic? Do they want to look
conservative?” McCray explains.
She'll often ask a bride about
the mood of the wedding before asking what she wants to wear because
the dress is ultimately a costume for a staged event. Then she starts
working with fabric to achieve the desired look.
“It's really
like painting with fabric,” she says. “It's like developing a moving
picture that flows and works with the body to depict the best part of
their figure, emphasize their beauty, enhance who they are.”
She
creates art, but she also becomes a part of people's lives. “In that
process I have made so many amazing friendships and I've become part of
their story,” she says, explain that brides often stay in touch and
update her on new babies and new jobs.
She enjoys working with brides because they are
so exuberant. That energy helps push her through the stages of
creativity as she germinates an idea, assimilates the concept,
completes the project and starts over again.
“One of the things
that is really subtle about sewing is that it's very much like yoga, or
Pilates, or meditation, or swimming or playing the piano,” she says.
“The similarity in all these things is that you have to be present in
the moment to do what you're doing. And so it's like a mini-vacation
from reality. ŠWe call it the sewing zone.”
Even though she
often works 12-hour days and dreams about patterns in her sleep, McCray
still finds the energy to continue creating art, saying: “I think the
most exciting thing is that I'm doing the passionate thing that I would
do even if no one paid me.”
SEW BUSY
Whipping up custom-made bridal gowns is just part of
the business that keeps Sew Fresh Studio buzzing throughout the week.
From alterations, to wardrobe consultations, and classes, the studio is
often filled with generations of sewers improving their skills. Rent
studio space, take lessons from McCray on draping fabrics, or simply
stop by to stock up on fabrics.
Boulder Daily Camera Newspaper:December 2007
Ideas for unusual Christmas gift ideas. How about a sewing machine and some lessons and how about making your gifts for your family and friends?
Boulder Daily Camera Newspaper:March 2007
Sew Popluar telling readers about how popular sewing for garments and home decor has become lately. We were pleased they chose to represent our studio is such a good light.
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