Photo: Emma Friedman/WBZ NewsRadio
SOMERVILLE, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — A vintage embroidery business in Somerville uses a 100-year-old machine to customize clothes and accessories for its customers.
Keeper, located at Bow Market, was co-founded by Sam Lee and Amelia Fitch. The pair specialize in chain stitch embroidery, in which they have enhanced all sorts of clothing with different designs, logos, and personal touches.
“I'm outlining the lettering for the Citgo sign,” Lee said. “A lot of people bring in a sweatshirt or a jacket or something and they want some inside joke that they may have to explain to us, which is kind of fun.”
Keeper’s claim to fame in the embroidery world has been their use of vintage machinery to craft these designs.
Their 100-year-old machine differs from other embroidery machines in how it's able to feed thread in any direction using a guiding knob, as opposed to the standard locked one direction machines. This means Lee and Fitch can more or less "draw" with the thread, opening up many more possibilities for designs.
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The fact that they make their work on this vintage hardware a service open to the public also proves to be a major draw.
“In Boston, there’s a couple people in the area that have these old chain stitch machines, but the two of us are really the only people in the Greater Boston area that offer this as a service that the public can access,” Sam said.
Their work has even garnered the interest of other businesses, such as companies like J. Crew, who will hire them to customize their products for people.
“Different brands will hire us to basically bring our machine setups bring it into their store and then provide their customers with custom embroidery,” Sam said.
Keeper is open Wednesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to seven p.m. for walk-ins, with Mondays and Tuesdays being reserved for appointments.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Emma Friedman (@EmmaFriedmanWBZ) reports.