Imagine being handed a bolt of 40+ yards of wide gold satin and being asked to create a sumptuous liner for a repurposed cement mixer drum. Such was the case for South Dakota seamstress Colleen Brunner. She works with Alex Headley and Jared Capp, aka “Cappie,” the hosts of Magnolia Network’s Building Outside the Lines Emmy-nominated TV show. The premise of the show is turning discarded materials into imaginative and functional spaces. Projects begin with such oddities as airplane fuselages, grain bins, water tanks, and the requisite cement mixer drum. If you haven’t seen the show, check it out online—it’s a fun one!
Colleen has a well-established sewing business, and her daughter Candace is the manager of the Shortgrass Resort, a luxury property outside Spearfish, South Dakota, owned by the show’s talented host family. Candace “volunteered” her mom for the show’s sewing adventures, and the rest is history.
The Beehive Bungalow
So, let’s talk about the Beehive Bungalow (aka repurposed cement mixer) being turned into a family retreat. The inside mixing blades had been removed, so the interior walls were rough, and of course not the least bit satin-friendly. But the even bigger challenge was the mixer’s shape—a tapered, beehive-shaped cylinder—narrow at the top and people-sized at the bottom. One can’t just hang satin fabric straight down a tapered wall, so the solution was to use gathered tiers. Oh, forgot to mention the structure had porthole windows installed in the side of the container—yet another challenge.
Colleen and the show’s 17-year-old host, Alex, had to take the fabric to a church to have enough space to lay out all the pieces and seam them together. Hauling back to the installation site, the three satin tiers were shrouded in a tarp, so when they hauled it in, the weight and shape made it look like a dead body! Ingenuity was in high demand as the beehive also had a plastic dome top already installed at the peak, so access to install the creation was even more challenging. Long story short, Cappie welded metal rings to the interior sides of the container at multiple heights, and Colleen attached clip-on shower curtain rings to loops on the underside of the satin tiers. The top of the lavish tiered liner was reinforced with buckram, so it stood up on its own against the plastic bubble top. Because the satin actually hung 2-3” out from the inner drum wall, snagging was avoided. Holes were cut in the satin to exactly align with the porthole windows, and the fabric edges were sandwiched between the inside rims and the drum walls.
Outdoor Living Room
In another of the show’s episodes, Colleen was challenged to make peach-color chiffon curtains for an “outdoor living room” pavilion at Iron Creek Lake. Easy-peasy compared to lining a cement beehive in gold satin!
Garden Design
As one might figure from the show’s title, Building Outside the Lines offers her some unique challenges. How about making a portable (and harvestable) garden for a child? To go with a greenhouse project show feature, Cappie cut a wooden form with holes in it while Colleen covered it in a fabric designed to look like garden soil. The faux vegetables fit into the holes and drop into the lower portion of the garden for “harvesting.”
Shortgrass Resort
Ever the adventurer, Colleen has played a part in decorating the Shortgrass Resort’s unique luxury European bungalows and the owners’ multiple Airbnb units. She outfitted each of the bungalows with swags above the beds and the Airbnbs with numerous curtains and pillows.
Meander Restaurant
Then came the draped fabric ceiling in the resort’s Meander restaurant venue. Done for both ambience and sound absorption, the ceiling drapes are held in place with tension rods. How much drape is just right for such a task? A mathematician friend helped determine the yardage so that the panels would drape properly to do the job without being overly cumbersome.
When she’s not working on the quirky projects for the TV show, Colleen runs her own successful sewing business crafting alterations, creating custom wedding dresses and formalwear, making costumes and other items. She loves the out-of-the-ordinary projects and also works with local clothing stores to embellish ready-made garments, and with interior designers offering help with home décor projects. She notes that she began sewing at age 8, taught by her mom (and a great high school home economics teacher), but feels she has an inherent creative gene to think outside the box for sewing possibilities—a perfect match for Building Outside the Lines. Colleen works on Brother sewing machines/sergers but also has an industrial machine for larger and heavier projects. She employs two part-time assistants, one of who is the Make it with Wool director for the state.
Few of us will ever have the opportunity to use our sewing skills behind the scenes on a network TV show, but as sewers, we continue to use our talents and ingenuity to sew for ourselves and others. Way to go, Colleen for seizing this opportunity to show your stuff, and may you have many more weird challenges!
Contact Colleen at https://bitsofblessingsstudio.com.
~Linda Griepentrog is the owner of G Wiz Creative Services and she does writing, editing and designing for companies in the sewing, crafting and quilting industries. In addition, she escorts fabric shopping tours to Hong Kong. She lives at the Oregon Coast with her husband Keith, and three dogs, Yohnuh, Abby, and Lizzie. Contact her at gwizdesigns@aol.com.
Linda had the opportunity to meet Colleen when she attended an event called “Build Weird” in Spearfish, SD.
