Page 22 - January-February 2020 HER

22 JAN/FEB HER
Local seamstress Sheila Huddleston lives a life- style appreciating the value in her craft, rather than price, when it comes to both her closet
and her customers’ closets.
Working under the name “Bride Ideas,” Hud-
dleston and her daughter, Marti Kaye Conrad, are personal seamstresses for many locals’ formal wear needs.
“If someone comes in here with a wedding dress that they got from someone and they pay $30, we celebrate that,” Huddleston said. “ ... If you bring me
your cousin’s dress that she sent you and it was free, that may mean the world to you, and then someone else brings a dress in they paid $3,000 or $4,000 for, well, of course, that means the world to them — or their mom.
“But those two dresses have the same value to us because you love it and we’re going to make it awe- some for you. So if they get one inexpensive, they get one cheap, they get one given to them, we’re like, ‘Heck yeah!’ We can do anything because they can have it how they want it, save a bunch of money,
and then they can spend it on something else. We love it when they get something cheap,” she said.
Huddleston said she enjoys sewing because it allows her to take a piece of clothing and make it anyway she wants to.
“What I like about sewing for other people is when they come in and the dress is just wrong — it doesn’t fit — and then making it where they can look straight ahead and walk without their dress tripping them,” she said. “ ... Like you have six layers of unpressed fabric, then we take it and we press
22 JAN/FEB 2020 ¯ HER MAGAZINE
Story by Cassidy Kendall, photography by Grace Brown