Sewing

HEADS BENT over, two women sat on pink chairs at an old wooden table, snipping and matching colorful pieces of fabric and felt. In the middle of the table, a pile of canvas tote bags waited for artistic touches to be added by the day's visitors to And Sew It Goes, a new quilt shop in Historic Savage Mill. In three hours, 25 bags were decorated and ready to be delivered to Howard County General Hospital's Breast Care Center. Carolyn Schoenian, the shop's owner, used the Mill's annual Parade of Trees on the weekend before Thanksgiving to kick off her mission to help fight breast cancer as she pursues her dream of running a needlecraft store.

Mildred Kern, an original resident of the North Oaks Retirement Community who had worked overseas for the United Nations, died of heart disease Sunday at her home. She was six days short of turning 105. "She was our oldest resident, and she was our very first resident," said Mark E. Pressman, the retirement community's executive director. "She and her sister actually moved in before the building was finished. She showed the first apartments at times and was actively interested in our growth.

Foreign competition and state regulation haven't completely wiped out Maryland's once-storied needle-trade industry, but the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation is working on it. It wants to raise taxes on Alice's Home & Cottage, a small Hagerstown company that sells period clothing to Monticello and Colonial Williamsburg and buys work from dozens of nearby women who lost jobs when the sewing mills closed.

The 2014 Maryland governor's race has been shaping up so far as a fight about inevitability. Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler long fostered the sense of his own lock on the job through a massive campaign war chest. Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown countered by becoming the first to officially enter the race, more than a year before the Democratic primary. Meanwhile, an assortment of potential Republican candidates and two other Democrats - Howard County Executive Ken Ulman and Del. Heather Mizeur - have been trying to make the case that an underdog could win. Now Mr. Brown is seeking to tilt the inevitability scales permanently in his favor with his planned announcement Monday that Mr. Ulman will join him as his running mate.

Some write, some paint. Faith Brooks Evans sews. Since high school, Brooks has been captivated by the creative possibilities of designing and making clothing.While a student at Morgan State in the 1970s, she staged fashion shows featuring her handiwork and later studied couture at the Paris Fashion Institute. Brooks, a special education teacher at Mergenthaler Vocational Technical High School, also teaches sewing in her home, makes outfits for her two daughters, designs costumes for school plays and has completed a cloak for her pastor, the Rev. Harold Carter of New Shiloh Baptist.

Ann Sherman Wolcott, At Aberdeen Proving Ground's chapel yesterday, the meeting room was humming with three dozen military wives who were ironing, measuring, cutting and sewing more than 200 yards of fabric into red and white flags. Others, including a few children, were painting wooden rods to hold the flags. And at the end of the assembly line, Elaine Valentin sat down at her sewing machine to realize a dream: to make a flag for every family who has lost a loved one in Iraq or the war on terrorism.

Dorothy Moulton Rankin, a retired federal worker who taught sewing in Africa and owned a tailoring and fashion shop in Baltimore in the 1970s and '80s, died July 14 at her home in Reisterstown after suffering a heart attack. She was 84. Dorothy Moulton was born in Baltimore and attended St. Barnabas Catholic and Baltimore City public schools. She graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in June 1942 and married William Rankin six years later. Mrs. Rankin became interested in sewing in high school, learning from her mother and making clothes for peers and family members, according to her sister, Lillian Wainwright of Baltimore.

An illustration in yesterday's Today section of Mary Pickersgill sewing the flag that inspired the "Star-Spangled Banner" should have been credited to the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House of Baltimore.

STUDENTS AT Mount Airy Middle School were given an opportunity to see the inside of "Miss Betty's Colonial Trunk" and learn about everyday life during the 1700s.The cultural arts program was presented Wednesday by independent performer Betty Jackson, who played the role of Miss Betty.She shared her many Colonial-era artifacts with the seventh-graders, who had a chance to participate in craft workshops in which they made and used Colonial items.The students tried their hand at dipping candles, printing wallpaper and writing with quill pens.

Channel chic: Broadcast television has a fashion show, "Main Floor," a syndicated magazine format half-hour that focuses on names and how-tos. In a video world where Elsa Klensch does high fashion, MTV does hip and QVC does home, "Main Floor" does mainstream.Each weekly episode includes beauty hints, shopping tips, a look at new products and backstage talks with designers, movers and models.Producers promise fashion chat for the guys, the almost forgotten television fashion audience. Sunday's segment goes to the MAGIC show in Las Vegas, a huge design and trade presentation of menswear lines that draws top manufacturers of everything from boxer shorts to tuxedos.

Harford Community College students created fleece no sew "comfort" blankets to donate to the Upper Chesapeake Medical Center's pediatric emergency department on April 25.

You know those nightmare wedding scenarios in movies where the music gets louder and the actors are sweating a little and everyone is in disarray? And you're watching thinking , that would never happen ? (I'm looking at you, Jennifer Lopez's character in “The Wedding Planner”….) I am here to tell you that it  does  happen. This weekend my friend Laura got married, and I was a bridesmaid. Save for some varying degrees of hangover from the super-fun rehearsal dinner at Cinghiale, everything was going well and according to plan.

Angela Tiburzi, who made men's suits for four decades, died of cancer April 25 at the Stella Maris Hospice. She was 86 and lived in Rosedale. Born Angela DiMarco in Baltimore and raised on Highlandtown's Eaton Street, she attended Our Lady of Pompei School. She met her future husband, Salvatore A. Tiburzi, later a Baltimore Police Department sergeant, as a child in the neighborhood where they both lived. They married shortly after World War II. The couple lived on Clinton Street in Highlandtown and later moved to Caradoc Drive in Rosedale.

The sewing lounge Sassy SEWer in Parkville has eight sewing machines for customers, but when Tamara Woods goes, she takes her own. It's not just about the machines, she said. "It's about the dedicated time with other sewers. We all like to do this. We chat. It's fun," she said. At home, she sews for other people. At Sassy, she works on raising her skill level and she sews things for herself, combining craftsmanship with fashion sense. "I love the technical part. But it's the creative part that takes over.

Nadia Karber spread yards of purple fabric across a sewing table, with all manner of lines marking inches. She measured and remeasured to assure accuracy before carefully pinning pattern pieces to the material. Then, from a sturdy apron this 9-year-old had just made for herself, she pulled out her sewing scissors. Just as she was set to cut, her teacher whispered, "Measure again. Your lines are not quite straight. " "I try to save them from their mistakes," said Peggy Steinberg.

The sew shop at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup is alive with the ticking sounds of Brother sewing machines, with Maryland state and U.S. flags draped over tables and chairs The sew shop at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup is alive with the ticking of sewing machines. Maryland and U.S. flags are draped over tables and chairs, and sewing patterns for the cross bottony, the red-and-white cross on the state flag, are hung neatly in a corner of the room.

You know those nightmare wedding scenarios in movies where the music gets louder and the actors are sweating a little and everyone is in disarray? And you're watching thinking , that would never happen ? (I'm looking at you, Jennifer Lopez's character in “The Wedding Planner”….) I am here to tell you that it  does  happen. This weekend my friend Laura got married, and I was a bridesmaid. Save for some varying degrees of hangover from the super-fun rehearsal dinner at Cinghiale, everything was going well and according to plan.

Sewing is one of those things we often wish we could do well yet never seem to find the time to learn. But for aspiring designer Ashley Holt, it's her ticket into college. "I sent in pictures of things that I made for myself along with fashion sketches," says the 18-year-old Fallston High School senior. "And I got accepted into the fashion-design program at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City" -- the school for future fashionistas. Holt's been sewing since sixth grade, honing her skills by "trial and error" and turning them into quick cash -- by setting up an embroidery business on the side -- and one-of-a-kind clothing.

Every other week, quilters gather in a sun-drenched community room that overlooks their Harford County homes. They will spend a few hours sewing and socializing, ever aware that they are stitching with a purpose. Like the quilting bees of old that provided families with warmth and comfort, the group, which meets at the Residents' Club at Bulle Rock in Havre de Grace, puts together coverlets that will ultimately let a wounded veteran sense the care and gratitude of a stranger. The quilters, mostly women but also a few men, are part of the "Quilts for the Injured Soldiers Project.