Learn about San Francisco's only
Sewing Lounge

Stitch Lounge
182 gough street, san francisco, ca 94102
415.431.3SEW (3739)

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CPR: Clothes Perfected thru Refashioning Bring your items hot from the Swap-a-Rama-Rama and breath new life into them at the CPR booth. The ladies of Stitch Lounge and authors of Sew Subversive: Down 'n' Dirty DIY for the Fabulous Fashionista (Taunton, 2006) will be on hand to help you embellish your wares by adding fabric appliques and patches, topstitching with colorful thread, pin-tucking, ruffling, and anything else you can dream up to transform the old clothes you've picked into personalized fashion treasures you love!

About Stitch Lounge Stitch is a women-owned business providing an inspirational, supportive environment for people to express their individuality by creating their own clothing and clothing accessories. Tools, supplies, resources, and advice are provided in a professional yet comfortable workspace that encourages the free exchange of ideas between all skill levels with a wide offering of classes from the basics of learning to use a machine to the fanciest of corsets and everything in between! The founders of Stitch Lounge have continued to spread the sewing gospel outside of San Francisco with their books Sew Subversive: Down and Dirty DIY for the Fabulous Fashionista (Taunton 2006), and Subversive Seamster due out in September, 2007.

Stitch Lounge's Founders Melissa Alvarado is a California native who has called San Francisco home for the past eight years. With a well-decorated resume of engineering and ergonomics gigs, Melissa developed Stitch Lounge to fulfill her ever increasing fashion and crafting needs. As a self-taught seamstress, the young Melissa made scrunchies with material scraps in her mother's sewing room. Melissa is not exactly a follower. She finds fashion liberation in taking thrift store gems, hand-me-downs, and forgotten pieces from the back of the closet and altering and coordinating them in a way all her own (and she makes a mean Burning Man costume!). When you meet Melissa, you'll feel her devotion to continual growth and learning and her love of a challenge. Living by the motto, "Don't be afraid of being noticed", Melissa looks forward to cultivating the unknown and pushing the limits of her sewing safety zone alongside the community at Stitch Lounge.

Hope Meng has been creative and crafty her whole life, dabbling in photography, dance, illustration, painting, and just about anything else that requires right-brained thinking. She started sewing seven years ago, when her acceptance into a local belly dance troupe required her to make her own costumes, and she hasnŐt put down the needle and thread since. Nowadays, Hope makes or refashions the majority of her wardrobe. Hope helped develop Stitch Lounge in order to share her knowledge of fashion design and to promote the local arts community. As one half of the Do-Everything Team of Superheroes, Hope designed the entire look and feel of Stitch, including logo, website, and store interior. In addition to Stitch, Hope is currently pursuing her second bachelor's degree in Graphic Design at California College of the Arts (formerly CCAC).

Melissa Rannels made her way north many years ago to get her UC Berkeley on, and has called the Bay Area home ever since. Melissa works with spreadsheets by day and crafts like mad at night. Stitch's own Ideas Girl has been crafting since she was old enough to mold peanut butter play-doh and attributes her proclivity toward creativity to her mother, who never gave her coloring books, but provided unlimited blank paper and crayons. She helped develop Stitch Lounge to create a community of inspired urban crafters.

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