January 24, 2008 Issue
Business Spotlight
Sew What’s Up!—Four Years of Alterations, Custom Sewing and Wacky Dressed Manikins
Story by Sam Calhoun
“If I can’t do it, it can’t be done around here,” said Tina Cecil, owner of Sew What’s Up!, located in the Sunrise Shopping Center in Banner Elk. “I do anything. I tell people to bring [their clothes in], I’ll figure out how to fix it and we’ll do it. And you can trust me to do it right because I am my own worst critic.”
Is your zipper broken on your favorite jeans? Perhaps your pockets have holes in them and you want them fixed? Maybe you received 20 pairs of pants for Christmas and all of them don’t fit? Maybe you want a custom-tailored suit? Maybe you want to alter your mother’s wedding dress so you can wear it at your wedding? Or maybe you lost a lot of weight and want to alter your clothes?
All of these possibilities and more are just a trip away—a trip to Sew What’s Up! in Banner Elk, Cecil’s alteration and custom sewing shop that is celebrating four years in business in 2008.
Cecil and one other employee, Janet Johnson, are whiz kids when it comes to fixing clothes and fabric home décor.
“We can fix anything really,” said Cecil, who described Johnson as an extension of herself.
Cecil loves what she does and loves where she works. In the same shopping complex where Sew What’s Up! is located, Cecil’s mother Virginia operates Specialty Furniture, and next door, Cecil’s father Gene runs a construction business. Cecil’s sister Gina works at Specialty Furniture.
Yes, it’s a family affair over in Banner Elk, but it hasn’t always been so. Cecil moved back to the High Country in 2004, after retiring from being an airline flight attendant. Cecil’s family moved to the High Country in 1968. Cecil attended Banner Elk Elementary, then Watauga High School and then left to go to Guilford College for a few years. Cecil eventually wound back up in the High Country attending ASU, graduating with a degree she designed herself in marketing, management and public relations. Out of college, Cecil took a job with Piedmont Airlines that US Airways later bought. She continued in the field for 16 years.
Nine years ago, Cecil’s only child Camryn was born and Cecil’s life in the air lost its glamour.
“I’d leave for a four-day trip and [one of Camryn’s] teeth would grow in. I knew those moments I would never get back,” said Cecil.
At the same time, one of Cecil’s friends encouraged her to take up sewing. Cecil began to knit bootees and simple clothes for Camryn.
“And I caught the bug,” said Cecil.
Cecil became a women obsessed. While she was away on four-day stints with the airline, she would set her VCR to tape sewing shows on HGTV. When she returned home on Sunday nights, she would watch sometimes six of the shows in a row, taking notes and practicing.
Then she heard about the Professional Association of Custom Clothiers (PACC) and decided to join. With the membership, Cecil took advantage of PACC conferences all across the nation and enrolled in master classes on sewing. The classes taught her all styles of sewing, but also included instruction on business tactics, problem solving and networking.
By 2002, Cecil was a walking, talking sewing machine, and she was able to quit her job as a flight attendant and dream of the future. At the time, she was living in Thomasville and began working out of her home. Less than two years later, after business had started to boom, Cecil decided to leave her husband and moved back to Banner Elk. Less than a week later, she had moved into the current home of Sew What’s Up!
Cecil’s sewing skills have only gotten better since opening Sew What’s Up!, but her prices have remained the same.
Cecil and Johnson take on any job imaginable, learning the techniques they don’t know—and they are few—from the bottom up.
“I tell everyone that if you want to learn how [a piece of clothing] is put together, then go to the thrift store, buy it and then dissect it like a frog,” said Cecil. “I tell everyone to bring in what they want fixed so we can look at it together. I’m like an auto mechanic—I have to get under the hood and then I’ll know what’s wrong.”
Cecil’s business is busiest from March through December, but now that word of mouth has spread, Cecil gets business year round from people in Beech Mountain, Boone, Banner Elk, Elk River, Sugar Mountain, Linville Ridge, Grandfather Country Club, Linville and beyond. ASU cheerleaders even go to her for all their alteration needs, such as before the ASU vs. Michigan football game.
Cecil also gets business because she is a drop-off point for A Cleaner World dry cleaners. Customers can drop off their clothes on Tuesdays by 11:00 a.m. at Sew What’s Up! instead of driving all the way to Boone and the clothes return dry cleaned on Friday by 11:00 a.m.
Cecil fills a niche in her area for alterations and custom sewing, but she knows her reach. If customers want embroidery, she sends them to Sew and Sew in Boone.
Cecil attributes her success to an uncanny ability to remember people, what they had fixed last time and their nuances.
“I see people who haven’t been here for three years and I still remember their name,” said Cecil.
While Cecil’s quality alteration work turns heads, so do her store’s windows. As a fun side project and also as a way to feed her addiction to creative clothes making, Cecil seasonally dresses up four manikins in the front window of her store, using unlikely materials. Over the summer, Cecil made a regal-looking gown out of cornhusks discarded from Los Arcosis Mexican Restaurant. In the fall, she chose a green theme and made dresses, skirts and gowns out of paper and plastic grocery bags and newspapers. For winter, Cecil currently has manikins dressed to the nines in trench coats and evening dresses made of screen door mesh, drop cloths, bubble wrap and HVAC tape. Cecil’s handiwork is so good that, from a distance, it is hard to tell that the manikins aren’t wearing real, expensive clothes.
In the future, Cecil wants to open another location of Sew What’s Up! in Boone, but she is waiting for the right person to walk in the door—just like Johnson did—to help her run it.
“I don’t know the timetable right now; I’m waiting for the right person,” said Cecil. “I want to also spend more time creating [clothes] and, yes, I may start giving lessons in the future.”
Sew What’s Up! is located at 484 West Main Street in Banner Elk in the Sunrise Shopping Center. The alterations and custom sewing shop is open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Friday. For more information, call 828-898-4644 or email sewwhatsup@skybest.com.
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