Meet our new JUKI Designer Ambassador, Kenya Freeman, CEO and Senior Lead Designer of Sylvia Mollie Collections – an American lifestyle brand that embodies bold femininity. Her garments are meant to instill power and confidence to fearless woman! And its’ because of this that Kenya’s motivation to create is simple: this is her purpose.
“It is my calling and my assignment beyond the passion. Knowing what I do is going to change the lives of many after me.”
We are very excited to have Kenya join the JUKI family as a JUKI Designer Ambassador and want to share a tidbit of her story with our JUKI Lovers! So follow along as we share a part of Kenya’s sewing journey.
Inspired by life, Kenya stumbles upon inspiration in her day-to-day activities. From dreams to the seasons, she’s always observing life outside of her home and the people she passes. Situations in life have continued to bring her inspiration, leading to her beautiful bold fashion pieces.
Kenya’s favorite pieces to work on are dresses. From the challenging cuts to the techniques she’s picked up, she looks forward to the pieces that will shine. Using Frixon pens, her favorite sewing trend, she drapes and uses her tool to mark those seams and lines. Her favorite part is heating it and seeing all the marks disappear from her work.
Kenya acclaims her season on Project Runway to be her most significant achievement in her sewing journey. Setting the tone for her future in fashion, Kenya’s life changed. As one of the top 5 finalists, Kenya’s work is loved by viewers. Her popularity quickly rose, and she inspired so many others to work on their skills.
Her love for sewing comes in full form when she sees the final product. It amazes her to see the process from concept to creation. As she continues to grow her brand Kenya’s primary goal is to relaunch her fashion line to sizes 10-20, creating an inclusive atmosphere for all fashion lovers.
Currently, in the process of the product development stage, Kenya is nothing but excited! With a roller coaster of an adventure since she joined the fashion industry, she’s experienced crazy, insane, exciting, devastating, and unforgettable moments. Her advice to sewers is simple, “Keep practicing. Keep practicing. Keep practicing. Never give up. It only gets better with time.”
We hope you enjoyed getting to learn about Kenya as much as we did, JUKI lovers! So join us on our socials and visit us here to keep up with our new friend Kenya and her journey in fashion.
Which of Kenya’s pieces did you love the most? Let us know below!
Sewing has always been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. When I was young, my mother sewed many of our outfits. We went to a private school, and with some additional help, she even sewed all the students’ uniforms. But it wasn’t just my mother who influenced my sewing journey, my paternal grandmother would sew Barbie clothes for me, which filled me with great delight! Later in life, my aunt helped me make curtains for my first apartment. Eventually, a majority of the women in our family started meeting regularly to either sew group projects or just work on our things. We still try to get together every year!
I didn’t start “seriously sewing” until I transitioned out of the corporate world (back in 2013). I’ve always been a driven and determined person and was convinced that there was more to being a stay-at-home mom than philanthropy and the car rider line. Most of my friends and all of my family knew that I love to sew. I was often asked to make things for people and told to sell my creations. I never really gave it too much thought until our local music Association hosted a craft fair. I decided to put myself out there and get a booth. I made several pillowcases and sold the majority of them at the craft fair. I was so excited about my success that I decided to open an Etsy shop and place the leftover products for sale online. This is how my company, Sew Much Moore In Storebegan.
My Etsy shop was how I initially made money with sewing. I started with pillowcases, then transitioned to bags, and was doing well making custom ID wallets for people on my Etsy shop. During this time, I started a website and learned about blogging through an online course. I created multiple lines of income through affiliate marketing and paid sponsorships. It wasn’t until 2016 that I made my business legitimate. You see, Etsy sent me an email that said they needed either my social security number or my FEIN#. I decided to go ahead and get my business license and things took off from there.
After I went legitimate, I was motivated and decided to give Amazon Handmade a try. At the time, I was using a hand-me-down 1984 Kenmore. This poor machine was on its last leg. I had made hundreds of ID wallets and make-up bags on it. I was constantly sending it in for service, and it just couldn’t keep up. When I opened my Amazon Handmade shop on Black Friday weekend, I made enough money to purchase my first Juki sewing machine. I’ve decided on an industrial sewing machine considering the amount of bags I was making in my commercial business. I purchased the Juki DU-1181N. I decided to get the servo motor so I could control the speed. I learned a great deal about industrial machines and even wrote a blog series which can be found here.
I found great success with my JUKI industrial, so it was an easy decision to purchase additional JUKI machines like the JUKI TL-2010Q straight stitch sewing machine. This is hands-down my favorite machine to sew on! I can easily piece my quilts, make most bags and even do some free motion quilting. It sews like a dream! And because I love free motion quilting, I added a JUKI J-350QVP as well. I occasionally quilt other people’s quilts, but because my long arm is currently on a table (and not a frame) I mostly just quilt my quilts with my J-350QVP. One of my business goals is to transition my long arm sit down to a frame and add the automation package. Both my kids are still in the house so until they fly the coop, I don’t have the real estate in my home for a longarm business right now. I’m also learning more about making garments so it only makes sense that I have a JUKI serger and cover stitch combo, MO-735. I bought these as gifts for my Mom and love to use them when I visit her. My mom still loves to teach me new things since sewing garments is something that I am still learning more about.
Speaking of sewing lessons… In 2017, I decided to add sewing lessons to my business! I was already contracted with a local quilt shop to teach monthly lessons to a kids club. I enjoyed working with the kids and decided to offer classes in my home for the local community. We don’t have a large space for group sewing, but we did manage to gather around the dining room table with our machines and learn about quilt piecing, bag making, and many other valuable sewing lessons. I continue to teach sewing and quilting through my videos and offer classes to guilds and quilt shops as well. To learn more about my lectures and and in-person workshops, you can visit my website here.
2017 was also the year that I was nominated for the Vice President of programming for the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild. During my two years of service, I had the opportunity to learn more about being a professional in the industry. I gained experience including contract negotiations, learning what a professional is worth, and the pleasure of getting to know so many inspiring creators in the industry. I was also pleased that the membership of the guild experienced tremendous growth during my years of service. I believe it had a lot to do with the talent we acquired for lectures and workshops. I also believe our guild was more successful in gaining new members and filling most sewing workshops because of the marketing efforts for the guild. My experience with Facebook pages, groups and events provided maximum exposure for our guild members and for potential members as well. We grew so much that we had to find a new place to meet as most meetings were “standing room only” and many workshops would sell out quickly.
I was getting comfortable with social media by this time and started engaging my audience through these platforms. By this time, my business had a weekly newsletter, a Pinterest marketing strategy, a social media schedule, patterns and products offerings on my WooCommerce website while still maintaining my Etsy and Amazon Handmade presence. I even started a custom t-shirt quilt business as well! With all these things going on, I decided it was time for a YouTube channel! This was a pretty good learning curve because I didn’t know much about editing videos. Fortunately, iMovie made it pretty simple and with the help of Google, I was able to start producing video tutorials. This new format helped reach a new audience and brought additional traffic to my website, which was now hosting advertising for yet another line of income to my business.
Fast forward to 2019, and I was sharing every day on my Instagram stories. I would constantly get questions about my sewing business. These questions inquired about how I managed everything that I was doing, and it made me feel happy and excited to help other people do the same thing. I never thought about adding coaching to my business until I learned more about producing my online courses. I learned how to create my business by online learning, so it only made sense for me to create my own coaching company.
The Creative Day Job began in 2020 and it currently hosts multiple online courses that serves Creative Entrepreneurs (mostly in the sewing and quilting industry). I love to help sewers and quilters that want to turn their hobby into a business by navigating the technology and overwhelm so they can start earning income from their craft. If I were to give a piece of advice to someone about starting or creating their own sewing/quilting business, it would be this, “just get started.” There’s always going to be something to overcome or some obstacle that might get in your way, but if you just get started and keep moving forward you can do it also! To learn more about the Creative Day Job, you can visit my website here.
I truly believe there is Sew Much Moore In Store for myself and my journey with the sewing and quilting industry. I love to help people with their sewing and quilting projects and I love to help people overcome their creative business obstacles. I especially love the JUKI brand because with the help of their machines and technology, my work has become more productive and enjoyable!
What began as a fun project turned into a world of its own; meet Tiana Feng, the face behind The Bacon Collection and Bacon the Doggers! A digital marketer in the music industry and dog stylist by night, Tiana runs her little dog’s social media account under Bacon the Doggers. A miniature schnauzer who loves getting dressed and doing photoshoots with their mom, they love to feature dog fashion from creators all around the world!
Beginning in April of 2020, Tiana began to pick up sewing after finding herself with an abundance of free time due to the COVID-19 lockdowns. Between research on the internet and plenty of YouTube videos, she began creating projects and continued to learn new tricks as time passed. The opening of ‘The Bacon Collection’ last year was inspired by human luxury fashion and street fashion. Bacon’s style has always been clothing that even humans would want to wear!
“The Bacon Collection is inspired by human luxury fashion as well as street fashion. That’s kind of what Bacon’s style has always been.”
Bacon was a natural model at the young age of 3! The first day he came home, Bacon was dressed in a sweater and loved it. Thus, history was born, and Bacon became an influencer without even knowing it! Wanting to learn how to make clothes specifically for Bacon, Tiana began designing and creating clothing. As she continued to grow and spend more time focusing on her hobby, she found that selling her designs and dog fashion would be a great way to support her next project. Inspired by her puppy, ‘The Bacon Collection’ was founded.
Opening up her Etsy shop in May, it would take a month before her first order. Slow at first, her shop began to grow as other dog influencers learned about her fashion sales and increased her viewership! Ballooning over 500 sales in a year, Tiana continues to be shocked at her progress from picking up sewing last year to her life now.
Using her JUKI MO-654DE serger and JUKI HZL-F600, Tiana plans to continue dressing more dogs in fabulous clothing and hopes to one day collaborate with some human fashion brands on projects. If you are interested in dressing your pet in beautiful clothing check out The Bacon Collection! Shop and social info down below.
Growing up, Megan, owner of ‘Made For Mermaids’, was raised around a mom who never stopped sewing! Megan’s mother filled their family home with sewing projects like holiday dresses, Halloween costumes, prom dresses, and even wedding dresses for Megan and her two sisters. Following in her mother’s footsteps, Megan is a mother of two, and wife to a firefighter, who started sewing when she got pregnant with her daughter. Creating projects for her children like her own mother had done, Megan sews blankets, bows, and lots of clothes!
Photo: Made For Mermaids Team
Becoming a pattern designer, she based her designs on her own family’s wants and needs. Grabbing inspiration for events or vacations coming up, she created patterns that fit each occasion and theme. With a family supporting her hobby, they enjoy finding projects online or out and about, and request that she creates them! Each project goes through a design process with so many different versions, Megan’s focus is creating something that will be loved and worn often.
Following her passion for creating patterns for her family, Megan opened up a small business where she sells various patterns with a team of nine other women! Looking to create a brand that would be easy to remember and a nod to her favorite princess, the Little Mermaid, she named her business “Made for Mermaids.” Starting, Megan originally sold princess-inspired dress patterns. As her team grew, so did her designs! Meeting her team through online sewing communities and social media, they started as a group of “testers” that would test her patterns before she sold them. As time passed and she grew closer to them, they began working together and mixed their strengths and talents to create what is “Made For Mermaids’ today!
Meeting together once a year, the team of nine meet in LA to shop for fabric, plan future patterns, and enjoy each other’s company! Working online and miles apart, they constantly communicate with one another to share their new ideas or recent inspiration.
“It’s so nice to have a group of women behind you, cheering you on, giving you inspiration, and having people to bounce ideas off of.”
Photo: Made For Mermaids Team
As Megan and her team continue working together, she hopes ‘Made For Mermaids’ will continue to grow and expand in the sewing community. With the hope to help new sewists learn for themselves, her favorite part of the business is feedback her teams get from first-time or new sewists. Assisting in strengthening others’ confidence, she finds this to be the most rewarding part of her work.
With two children of her own, Megan shared with us her favorite part of the new school year as a mom: creating a special first-day outfit! Letting her children join in on the creative process, she has each of them pick out their favorite fabrics and designs before sewing something to wow the class on the first day of school! Working on her JUKI machines like the HZL-DX7 sewing machine, a MO-1000 serger, and an MCS-1500 coverstitch machine, she creates outfits like the ones shown here!
Learn more about ‘Made For Mermaids’ and her projects by visiting her e-shop today! Don’t forget to follow the links below as Megan continues to put out new and exciting patterns.
Like many others, Mellissa, better known as Lissa, looked up to her older sister growing up and watched her sew. When Lissa was in fifth grade, she took her first sewing class at her local Ben Franklin. Creating an adorable lime green with bright pink apples trimmed with pink ric-rac pinafore and shorts, Lissa tried following her sister’s footsteps by creating projects with no patterns. She quickly realized it was not as easy as she thought and left the clothing construction to her sister. However, this didn’t shy her away from sewing but encouraged her to look into different projects Lissa could create. One day, she stumbled upon quilting and found herself transfixed with it!
“Quilts don’t have to fit anyone.”
Photo: Moda Lissa
The idea of quilts changed her life. No longer was she trying to hem and follow a body type, but now she was tackling a different puzzle! With a father in engineering, she took to quilting like a math problem, creating patterns in her artwork. After marriage and having kids, Lissa kept up with her hobby by working at a local quilt shop a few evenings a month and on Saturdays. Eventually, she started teaching classes and was hired to open a quilt store. Nine years later, she began a position as the Director of Marketing for Moda Fabrics.
Working at Moda Fabrics, Lissa started collaborating with all different types of designers. Sewing various projects from fabrics those designers crated and creating combinations no one could’ve predicted! Lissa created pieces of art that were as beautiful as they were different. Her favorite challenge with each project was seeing how many different designers she could place on one project.
“It just makes me happy. As I touch each piece I think of the designer, the name of the fabric line, and how fortunate I am to have them as friends.”
Photo: Moda Lissa
As time went on, Lissa began creating patterns she wanted to share with others. Inspired by a high school story where she introduced herself to the class, she came up with a clever tactic to make her peers remember her name. Cutting a picture of the Mona Lisa and gluing yellow yarn to represent her blonde hair, she created a plan! Everyone knew about the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci and all they had to do to remember her name was to think of the Mona Lisa but with blonde hair. Years later, after starting her position in Moda Fabrics, she called it a no-brainer when she created the nickname Moda Lissa for her media.
Lissa’s first solo pattern book, “OH SCRAP” was published after experiencing a series of seizures diagnosed as a subdural hematoma resulting in brain surgery. While recuperating, she was offered the opportunity by Martingale Publishing to create her first pattern book. Continuing forward, Lissa would begin working on the Sisterhood of Scraps and Scrap School. Working with some of the best quilters in the industry sewing scrap quilts, she learned new skills and techniques for her projects. While her books focus on the usage of a scrap quilt, her main goal has always been to encourage freedom for quilters to play and create with fabric.
“You may have always heard that quilting is therapy and it certainly was for me. I love learning and exploring how the publishing world works was very exciting.”
Photo: Moda Lissa
As Lissa continues to sew on her baby Junie, our TL-2000Qi named after her aunt, she hopes to start sewing apparel in the future. With her two granddaughters and three grandsons, she’s excited to start creating their Halloween costumes and more in the future. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for Lissa’s next pattern book! Lissa’s goal is to continue her pattern creations and helping sewers like you have fun.
To learn more about Lissa and her story follow her on the links below and check out her site to see her pattern books!
sewinwithjuki.com 