Customer Designer Spotlight: Heather Gabriel

This week for the Britex Customer Designer Spotlight we're featuring Heather Gabriel of The Singing Seamstress! Our Spotlight Fabric is wool, and Heather creates amazing Santa Claus costumes with it! If you'd like to be featured, be sure to tag us or send us a message with your work using our wool!

Meet Heather Gabriel:

Tell us a bit about yourself and your business, The Singing Seamstress!:

Five years ago I decided to start my own seamstress business full-time after having done it part time for about 15 years. Half of my business is Santa Claus and the other half is mostly bridal with a little bit of cosplay thrown in. I make Santa Claus suits for Santas all over the world. In a year I will make anywhere from 45 to 60 suits, and the last three years I’ve had a waiting list. This year I have made about five or six suits from the fancy wool that you brought me from Italy. When people ask me what I do I tell them that I make magic. I consider my job done when either the man looks in the mirror and sees Santa (The magic must begin for him or he cannot pass it along to the children of all ages ) or the bride looks in the mirror and squeals with delight (The magic of a new beginning.)

What made you decide to do holiday designs? 

I started out making theater costumes. I’m actually an actress as well. One of my theater friends who looks like Santa Claus asked me one year if I could make him a costume. Once he wore it for the season and got such good responses, he recommended me to a local Santa group called the Lonestar Santa‘s. They are the largest regional group in the US. I joined them for their annual conference. Another member of the group added me to the largest Santa group on Facebook and I started posting my designs. It kind of grew from there.

What are your favorite types of fabric to work with?

I think cotton is the easiest thing to work with hands-down but I only get to use that when I’m making shirts for my Santas. I’ve grown to love working with velvets and wools and silks and satins. I love anything that has a soft hand and that is beautiful to look at.

What is your best advice for aspiring seamstresses and designers?

Find your passion and stick to it. I didn’t honestly know that my passion was going to be Christmas performers but as I grew into it, I discovered that’s really what I wanted to be doing and I started cutting everything else out of my repertoire. At the beginning it’s hard to say no to any request but once you find out what makes your heart sing, don’t do anything else. 

What is your favorite thing about shopping at Britex?

Britex has been willing to work with me to make my clients’ crazy dreams come true. The Christmas Chronicles replica suits have made thousands of children happy.