Fashion show fundraiser builds skills in young women

PALMER — Students of the Scarlet Tapestries apprentice program are about to see their hand-sewn works sashay down the runway for a good cause.

This Saturday, about 10 young women will model 15 different outfits for the annual Youth Fashion Show starting at 5 p.m.

Seamstresses aged 7 to 18 will present their creations themselves or on their selected model at Real Life Church, 10697 E. Palmer-Wasilla Hwy., Palmer. Contest entrants compete for the grand prize of a sewing machine, as well as categorical awards for the following: Formal Wear, Business/Semi-Formal, Casual Wear, Sportswear, Costumes, Outerwear, Children’s Wear and Theme Wear — “Old Things Made New.”

The Youth Fashion Show does include an option for beginning adult seamstresses — someone who has been sewing for less than one year — to enter one outfit in any category.

Advanced tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for children aged 3 to 12 (children 2 years old and younger are free). Tickets can be purchased at Connect Palmer, 202 South Alaska St., Palmer.

In years past, the show has come out of Sherry Carrington’s Aurora Creative Designs Sewing Studio, which she closed to focus less on alterations and more on teaching. It gave her the opportunity to come onboard with the fashion show’s new sponsor, Connect Palmer.

Connect Palmer is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization on a mission to help Palmer’s youth, single-parent families and those struggling with unemployment. Connect Palmer strives to provide work and life-skills training and practical needs assistance.

“Many people, young and old alike, need help understanding how to work and need opportunities to learn good work habits and job skills,” Carrington said. “The fashion show is a way for our sewing apprentices to show off their hard work and creativity.”

One of those apprentices is 18-year-old Kateri Houser, in her second and final year of being a part of the fashion show. Houser has been sewing with Carrington for the past six years, but needed a little prodding to get started.

As the oldest in a house full of girls, Houser was always the one to help with any hard labor her father was doing.

“I’m definitely not as girly as the rest of my sisters,” Houser said.

But when the family visited the sewing studio and Carrington let them loose with the machines, Houser found that she had ideas she wanted to see through to reality — no matter how many stitches she needed to pull and re-sew.

“It was definitely a test of patience for me,” she said.

Now she’s working on a prom dress made from old Carhartt overalls, inspired by an old photo of herself and her grandfather in which they are both wearing Carhartts.

For home school and apprentice program graduate Lauren LaForest, the skill of sewing has come a little easier. When she moved t`o Palmer at age 11, LaForest wanted to get involved in the community, and found sewing classes to be a good way to do so. Now she teaches private lessons of her own to youth with Connect Palmer and in the community, helps organize the fashion show, and does custom costume work for clients in and outside of Alaska.

LaForest is currently pursuing a degree in psychology through the online CollegePlus program, which could help with the kind of work Connect Palmer does, but she’s proud of the skills she’s gained as a seamstress with Scarlet Tapestries.

“I’m not always going to succeed in everything I put my hand to, but I will always have sewing,” LaForest said.

For more information, visit the Scarlet Tapestries website at sewloved.org or call 746-9675.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.