Linda Kruegel has enjoyed sewing and crafting for most of her life. As a child, she and her family lived with her grandma who was a quilter and a sewer. “I remember a good many days of sitting underneath the quilts while she and her sisters and friends were quilting,” she said. During Linda’s junior year of high school, she made her own wedding dress as a school home-ec project in preparation for her wedding, which was scheduled to take place that summer before her senior year of school began. Linda used a pattern to make her dress, an A-line with bell sleeves and lace on the bottom, and then brought it home where her grandma and aunt helped her alter the top to fit her perfectly.
After Linda had her four children, she continued to sew for a few years, making things for them, but when she started working outside the home, she found she just didn’t have the time anymore. So for a time, she gave up sewing and crafting. But about 10 years ago, Linda retired and decided it was time to pick it back up. “It’s a trade you never really forget,” she explained. “It’s just fun to see what you can create.”
Linda describes herself as a crafty sewer, often using repurposed materials such as candy wrappers, feed sacks, and more. Her inspiration for sewing with feed sacks came from a shirt she saw made out of them in North Dakota during a work trip there. She loved the idea, but not the price so she found some feed sacks at an auction in Spring Valley and made a jacket for herself. When her cousin saw her jacket, he loved it so much that he asked her to make one for him too and even offered her a stack of feed sacks he had. “They’ll never wear out!” she said about the hardy but comfortable material.
Linda also uses cork and candy wrappers such as M&M bags to make purses, billfolds, and more, explaining that she finds it fun to work with different materials and textures. Of course, she also enjoys sewing and crafting with traditional fabric from her generous stash as well. She makes lots of gifts for her family and friends and also makes things to sell at the various craft shows she’s been attending for 10 years, with insulated drawstring bag style coozies and microwave holders for bowls and plates being her biggest sellers. In addition to participating in craft shows around the southeastern Minnesota area, she also organizes the Wykoff craft show, although it was canceled this year due to COVID-19. Because of the pandemic, she had the opportunity to add face masks to her crafting repertoire, making them for other residents of her apartment building. She already had plenty of fabric on hand as well as elastic which she had purchased several bags of when a craft store in Rochester went out of business.
For the last four years, Linda has sewn onesies, hooded jackets, snowpants, gowns, and more for Bundles of Love, an organization that gifts handmade items to babies born into Minnesota families in need. She enjoys being able to use her skills to help others.
Like her grandmother did for her, Linda is passing her talents of sewing and crafting on to the younger generations. Her daughter Tara keeps several of her sewing machines at Linda’s home and occasionally visits her mom for a day of sewing together. Linda is also teaching her great-granddaughter Lily how to sew. “You kind of teach them along the way,” she explained. “It’s just little bits and pieces here and there.”
Up until this summer, Linda stored all of her supplies and fabric in two closets in her apartment. But one night about a year ago, she was laying in bed trying to sleep when she realized that there would be ample space to work and organize her supplies in her bedroom. “So I got up at like three or four in the morning and measured the bed and then measured the (hallway) closet,” she explained. A twin bed would fit perfectly in the closet so Linda decided to downsize her double bed and turn the bedroom into her new sewing room. She moved all of her fabric and other craft supplies out of the closet into the living room, and slowly, but surely started the task of organizing, destashing, and moving her things into the bedroom. She purchased pegboards at Ikea to hang on the wall behind her sewing machine table, removed the closet doors, and added some shelving, along with other improvements. Tara helped her with as did Linda’s niece Paula. This summer, the project was finally complete, which was perfect timing as Linda was spending more time crafting due to the pandemic.
Linda’s sewing table holds four different machines, a Crescendo quilting machine, an Ovation serger, a Baby Lock Sashiko one-needle quilting machine, and an embroidery machine, and she uses them all regularly for her different sewing projects. She spends about 80% of her time in her sewing room. “I never get bored, and I always have something to sew,” she explained. Linda enjoys a challenge now and then too. “I learn along the way,” she said. “It’s not just sewing. I dabble in a little bit of everything,”
In addition to making gifts for family and friends, items for her craft shows, and other projects, Linda also helps our her neighbors at the apartment building with hemming and other small sewing projects. “It keeps me busy,” she said. “They try to keep me out of trouble.” She credits her crafting with helping her get through the pandemic. “It’s just something I really enjoy doing, and if I can help somebody out with some sewing, I like to do it,” explained Linda.
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