Instructor: Michelle Santoro
Michelle is Urban Threads Studio's Artistic Director and a former boutique owner and fashion design faculty at Dominican University. Michelle has also worked on costume design and construction at Chicago theatres such as Goodman, Chicago Shakespeare, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, DePaul University, and was instrumental in establishing the Fashion and Textile Museum in London together with British designer Zandra Rhodes.

Organization: Urban Threads Studio, NFP


The world around us is changing quickly but our need for communal gatherings in a nurturing and creative setting is not. Urban Threads Studio is a D-I-Y (do it yourself) collaborative studio that hopes to introduce you to the wonderful ancient craft of sewing and textile art with a 21st century twist. You may just want to rediscover a skill you learned as a child, experience the calm energy of a day of crafting or pick up an altogether new or more advanced skill like dyeing or felting. Our program hopes to accomplish all that and much more. All of our classes are offered at a nominal fee and all proceeds are used to bring textile arts to urban youth in Chicago in form of after school programs, summer programs, and internships.