In a stitch? Seamstresses have you covered

By JoANN JONES

In a stitch? Seamstresses have you covered

Needle and thread can combine to make more than one person happy.

Martha Ciminelli knows people. After all, she’s been dressing them for 35 years.

“As soon as I look at a person, I know what looks good on them,” Ciminelli said.

With alterations shops in Salem and Canfield, Ciminelli has been creating not only the “right” clothing, but also “different” clothing since she was 17 years old.

“I did my first wedding when I was 17,” she said. “I made all the dresses. It was 10 days after graduation. The girl was my best friend … and she still is.”

Ciminelli, who never turns down a challenge, said she has not had one job that she couldn’t complete.

“There was a girl who had only $300 to spend on her wedding dress,” she said. “The store sold her a size 12 because they wanted her money. The problem was that she was a size 22. The girl thought the store would alter it, but was told she would have to have her own alterations done.”

“I did it,” Ciminelli said triumphantly. “I knew if I took the sleeves off, put a new back on, and then put on new sleeves, it would work. And because I knew that she was almost out of money, I only charged her $50.”

“Every time I see the girl’s father,” Ciminelli said, “he says, ‘There’s the sewing lady … she’s the one who made it fit!’”

By creating new clothing from old, Ciminelli has made helping people a habit.

“I’ve taken prom dresses, shortened them, added jackets, added beads, and what the girl has is completely different,” she said. “No one knows the girl is wearing her sister’s dress.”

A couple of years ago, Ciminelli said, everything was long, and now girls are wearing short dresses.

“I take them in, cut off the bottoms and make jackets out of what is cut off,” she said.

Because Ciminelli loves helping people, she doesn’t turn down someone who is short on cash.

“One girl wanted a prom dress and really didn’t have much money at all,” she explained. “I always had a few prom dresses in my closet. I’d alter them and then sell them for $50 or $75. I told this girl, ‘You come and clean out my closet, honey, and it’s yours.’”

The girl came in and chose a dress, Ciminelli said, and when the seamstress wouldn’t take any money, the girl asked what she could do for her.

“I told her she could come and clean out my flower beds,” Ciminelli said with a chuckle, “and she did!”

Ciminelli also told a story of a girl who bought her wedding dress on eBay and was sent the wrong size.

“When she called, they just told her to send it back and they’d replace it,” she said. “But the girl panicked and bought more dresses in case it didn’t come. She ended up with three. But we got her ready within 24 hours of the time the dress came in.”

However, Ciminelli doesn’t limit her creations to just dresses. She and the six members of her staff go to nursing homes and rehabilitation centers to alter the clothing for people who have strokes or who must have help getting dressed.

“It’s hard for the patients’ families to dress them,” she explained, “so we take out buttons or zippers and put in Velcro to make the clothes fit better. We’ve been doing this for the last 12 years.”

“There’s a lady who is 100 years old at Copeland Oaks [Retirement Center in Sebring],” Ciminelli said. “I go to her, fit her, take her clothes to the shop to alter, and then take them back.”

She also found that she could make alterations on medical equipment, such as braces.

“When my son had to wear a brace for football,” she said, “I took him to the doctor after I had put an extender in the brace to make it more comfortable. The doctor asked my son who had done that. I thought I was going to get yelled at. But he said, ‘How did you do that?’ and I told him how. Now we make extenders as well as things for walkers and wheelchairs.”

Another area seamstress, Teresa Felgar, of Beloit, said she never throws anything away because she never knows when she could use it.

“My grandmother had a quilt that had holes in it,” she said, “and I made a stuffed bear out of it. My dad had a fit because it was his mother’s, so I hide it under the bed whenever he comes over.”

Felgar, who spends most of her time doing embroidery but has taken in more alterations due to the fewer orders because of the economy, is like Ciminelli in that she loves to help people out.

“I went on the Internet and Googled children’s charities,” she said. “We ended up making 50 quilts for Akron Children’s and Rainbow Babies hospitals.” She said she used some of that material she never throws away.

Because creativity is Felgar’s forte, too, she has made all sorts of things from other clothing or household items.

“I’ve made baby bonnets from old embroidered pillowcases,” she said, “and granddaughters’ christening dresses out of their grandmas’ wedding dresses.”

One heartbreaking time for her, though, was making an infant’s dress from a formal dress of a grandmother. The woman’s grandchild had lived only a few days, but the family wanted to bury the child in something made from that dress.

Felgar said she has been “making riding clothes,” such as jackets, caps and outfits for her daughter, Madelynn, who shows horses. And because she wants the art of sewing to live on in her family, she’s been teaching Madelynn how to sew. Over Christmas break, Felgar said, her daughter made Christmas stockings and all sorts of things.

“I told her sewing would be a good way for her to earn extra money to save for college,” she said. “Besides, she likes to sew.”