Melissa Stramel - Lilac Lane

Melissa is a creative mother of three. While staying home with her children, she started a business called Lilac Lane. She has a love of all things floral and enjoys flower gardening, flower arranging and sewing with floral fabrics. While sewing for her children, she was inspired to start her business, Lilac Lane, which grew into a store in her home of Colby, Kansas, called Creations Gallery. Although now closed, Creations Gallery was a good place to get a feel for her local market.

Her inspiring ideas soon led her to create a blog site (http://melissaslilaclane.blogspot.com) and start to work on designing her own patterns. A pharmacist by training, she feels most at home working with fabrics and sewing new projects, from aprons to quilts.

In 2009 and 2010, Melissa designed patterns for the Moda Bake Shop and Riley Blake’s Cutting Corners. Then in the spring of 2010, Melissa was inspired by her young daughters to try something new. She began designing fabrics to fill a void she saw in the industry. She wanted something beautiful and yet fun which could be enjoyed by women of all ages.

Melissa’s fabrics are produced by Andover Fabrics and her patterns by QuiltWoman.com. Her website is http://www.melissastramel.com