Visitors to Tinley Store Tap Into Their Creativity

If you aren't looking for , you may pass it by.

Located in a quaint Tinley Park neighborhood, its bricks blend in with those of adjacent buildings. There aren’t any flashy signs, balloons or bright colors. The word "SEW" is simply posted in the second floor window.

But it isn’t until you walk through the door at that you understand the vast understatement of the store's exterior. It’s like a gallery of color. Visitors are greeted with spools of thread, embroidery software and books; all things to help your creative juices flow. 

What used to be an office space has become a seamstress' safe haven. It’s peaceful. It’s calm. 

Three rooms are filled with more than 4,000 fabric selections from all over the world; including producers like Moda and Treasure Monarch. Textures and patterns span the spectrum. Each piece shines with an individual beauty yet not one competes with another.

A fourth room in the store is dedicated to Janome sewing machines, the largest manufacturer of home sewing machines in the world.

Sew Creative offers customers the chance to not only learn a craft, but master it. And the head mistress is owner Peggy Finfrock.

“I took home economics in high school and back then they actually taught you how to sew," Finfrock said. "I got more than a college education in sewing in high school. We learned tailoring. We learned how to do it all. … Now it’s very hard to find any school that teaches sewing at all.”

That's why the entire second floor of the store is dedicated to teaching. While the classroom draws a lot of people to the store, Sew Creative has a wide range of customers.

“My customers are kids that are 10 years old to seniors (who) are over 80,” Finfrock said. “Some are new to sewing, some are renewing their interest, some have never stopped … it’s just all over the map.”

One former student—she's now in California attending design school—started taking kids classes at Sew Creative when she was in seventh grade.
“That’s our best success story,” Finfrock said. “She had a dream and she was able to follow it all the way through.”

Spending time with customers is what she enjoys most about her job, she said. She takes her lessons beyond the needle techniques of the classroom and also offers one-on-one instructions.

Each time a customer buys a Jenome sewing machine, he or she receives a private session with Finfrock on how to operate it. 

“I talk directly to them and answer all of their questions," she said. "And if they get home and forget then they come back and I tell them again."

That consistency is one of the keys, she said. 

“I’m successful because of my selection of fabric and the one-on-one instruction (I give customers) … ” she said.  “I personally am here six days a week, every week.”

Finfrock has been sewing since she was 13 years old, she said. As a teenager she made her own clothes and as a mother, she used her talents to make christening gowns for her two children. 

After working two and a half years at a sewing business with someone else, Finfrock decided she would try it on her own.

Today, 18 years and three locations later, Finfrock is happily settled in , where she runs her business and has lived for the past 35 years.