Sitting in the basement of 518 M.A.C. Ave. in the Sigma Kappa sorority house, apparel and textile design junior Kathleen Crowley is hard at work, embroidering with her new machine.
A variety of colors of thread serve as decorations on the walls around her, and the buzzing sound of the machine fills the room as she works.
This past summer Crowley started her own business, Kat C. Embroidery.
“Over the summer, I was thinking about what I was going to do during the school year, what kind of job I was going to get,” Crowley said. “I knew I didn’t want to have a traditional job. I knew I wanted to do something kind of ‘fashiony’...maybe retail, but I wasn’t sold on that.”
She thought an embroidery business would be big in East Lansing because there isn’t a place students can take material or articles of clothing to be embroidered.
“Being in a sorority, I know that’s a huge thing, and I know a lot of girls send it out to Etsy or different greek websites or other websites for monogramming,” Crowley said.
Crowley committed to her new business venture, got an embroidery machine, and got started.
Crowley has embroidered for her friends, family, members of her sorority Sigma Kappa, and members of the greek community.
However, she is trying to expand her services to other students on campus.
“So it’s mostly them, but I would love for people not in greek life to find me and order stuff through me because it doesn’t just have to apply to greek life,” Crowley said. “I can do greek things, but a lot of people love having things monogrammed and embroidered.”
From shirts to hats, blankets, and the tongues of Converse shoes, Crowley has embroidered on almost every kind of fabric.
“I’ve done anything from things like a basic monogram to writing text out on it to putting their name to Greek letters,” she said. “I know my sister loves Beyoncé, so I embroidered a hat that said, ‘I woke up like this’ for her.”
She said the best part is when her clients love the piece after it’s done. If they’re happy, Crowley said, then she’s happy.
Besides the incredible feeling she receives after her work is finished, Crowley said Kat C. Embroidery helped her learn more about fashion and embroidery, which can help her reach her career goals.
“I think this could definitely help me,” Crowley said. “For one, having it on my resume that I’m working with apparel and that I started my own business...that can really help. But also learning about this aspect of the design industry and how embroidery can be transferred over from just having a home machine and embroidering monograms for people to incorporating it into evening wear and couture aspects.”
She said it’d be awesome to combine the aspects of all of her loves including embroidery, evening wear, dresses and design one day.
Crowley said all of this wouldn’t have been possible without the encouragement from her dad. He pushed Crowley to start the business, and helped her financially.
She said she had no idea how starting Kat C. Embroidery would play out, but she encourages other Spartans to pursue their own passions in college. Students should try, without worrying about whether it will fail or succeed, she said.
In terms of networking, Crowley said, “If you just put yourself out there and talk to people, you can make it happen.”
