Volunteer Spotlight: Holly Gray
Holly Gray became interested in The Sewing Labs after seeing it on TV during the mask-making in the early part of the pandemic. She soon applied and completed the orientation online, but it was a while before she came in. Once she did, she was immediatly sold by “the welcome, the inclusion of people, both who had a lot and who didn’t have a lot.”
It reminded her of the Madison Area Technical College she attended near where she grew up in Wisconsin, and the workshops she learned in. She studied Clothing Services and Clothing and Textiles, completing both programs.
Fabrics and what to do with them has been in her blood since she was young. “Mom made me wait till I was 10 to sew on a machine,” she said, “but by the time I was in high school, I was making extra money by sewing dresses for Mom’s friends to wear to work.”
In her classes at the college, she studied all aspects of fibers: drapery, tailoring, fitting, garment construction, and pattern making. “We made drapes, some industrial, some production. And since I had extra time, I learned upholstery as well.”
There was even a class requiring students to design and screen print their own fabric, enough to make a garment. So she did that, too. Hers was a long skirt with sweeping gores. “It was stylin’!” She smiled, remembering.
For years afterwards, she did men's, women's and bridal alterations for a living, and also worked in a sewing machine shop where she learned a good deal about how the machines function. Nowadays, she and like-minded friends go on a quilt retreat for a week in spring and fall — a divine escape.
Fearless of any project involving textiles, Gray's newest prokect is a new ironing board cover to replace an old stained one from TSL. For several months, she has been Cali’s assistant in the Salon classes. “I like being with the students; it reminds me of where I came from [at the tech school],” she said.
Her days learning about fabrics are the fondest of memories. “I really consider my skill a gift, innate. You learn things, of course. But this—it’s a wonderful thing!”
