Meet The Founders
Megan began crafting as a young child, trying her hand at any craft she could get her hands on, including knitting, crochet, watercolor painting, and sewing (which quickly became her favorite thing to do!) Megan attended Lehigh University and earned a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering, then worked in commercial construction for 9 years.
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Upon leaving the corporate world in 2007 to be a stay at home mom, Megan relied heavily on sewing as a creative outlet for survival (and sanity!) while raising three young daughters. Soon after, she opened an Etsy shop and sold her creations online, then started teaching sewing in her home. In 2015 she opened Urban Sewciety in Westfield, NJ, where the Sewciety Kids Sewing Program was born.
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Megan lives with her husband, three kids, and two dogs in Fanwood, NJ.
Meg is a life-long resident of Cranford, NJ. She earned a Masters degree in Family and Consumer Science Education from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Meg learned to sew from her grandmother at the age of ten years old. In high school she took every sewing class offered, then continued developing her sewing skills in college - when she wasn’t studying, she was sewing! Meg began teaching sewing in her hometown and at various schools in New Jersey. In 2016, she became an instructor at Urban Sewciety.
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Soon after meeting, Meg and Megan realized they made a great team and joined forces, becoming business partners in October 2016. Meg can be found in the studio teaching the kids’ after school classes and designing projects for kids’ and adult classes.
She lives with her husband, Joe, and daughter in Cranford, NJ.
Our Success Story
The Sewciety Kids Sewing Program was born at Urban Sewciety, a fabric shop and sewing studio in Westfield, New Jersey.
Megan Whitney opened the Urban Sewciety in 2015 in a cozy little 350 square foot space and began by offering just a few classes, including one which quickly became the most popular - a mommy & me beginner sewing class. Kids loved this class and wanted more, so Megan began offering after-school courses for kids. Kids came, made cool projects, had tons of fun, and still wanted more! Suddenly, dozens of students were enrolling in after-school classes. A year later, Megan took on a business partner, Meg Bulthaupt, and the business expanded to a larger space to keep up with the demand. Two years later, the business was bursting at the seams again and moved to another location twice the size. Today, after yet another expansion, Urban Sewciety is a 8,000 square foot, full service fabric shop and sewing studio.
Meg and Megan found that the biggest challenge of teaching kids' classes was they were continually running out of content. The same students kept coming back wanting more. They knew the classes were successful because the projects offered were modern, fun, appealing, and relevant to kids’ lives. But the ongoing process of coming up with new ideas, creating the patterns, testing them and revising them was difficult and very time-consuming. Megan searched for an existing sewing curriculum that would take the burden of creating new content off their shoulders. When she found nothing that would meet their needs, the pair set out to create their own curriculum.
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Today, the Sewciety Kids After-School Program at Urban Sewciety has over 250 students enrolled and continues to grow. During the summer, 500 plus students enroll in Summer Camps. Urban Sewciety's growth and success has been fueled entirely by its kids program, and we firmly believe that by offering a Sewciety Kids Program, your new or existing studio can experience the same success.
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