About Ellen Miller

Ellen W. Miller loves to sew elegant clothing, from the simple to the ornate. She is an accomplished professional couture seamstress, having designed and made custom couture clothing. Ellen loves teaching sewing. She is fascinated by how students learn: some need to read a hand out, some need to see a demonstration, some need to do the project themselves. The moment when an idea or concept suddenly makes sense to a student - the aha! moment - is joyous. It might be a small moment: a button needs a shank so it stands above thicknesses of the cloth around the buttonhole, or it might big a moment: clothing alterations are like draping but on a real person. When a student understands the lesson- that’s the reward for a teacher.

Ellen’s book, Creating Couture Embellishments is a 400-page, abundantly illustrated, how-to book with 3 sections: basic tools and techniques, fabric manipulation, and embellishments and trimmings. Within the 3 sections are 23 chapters covering 174 techniques including quilting, ruffles and flounces, passementerie, beads and sequins.

Before writing Creating Couture Embellishments, Ellen taught at the School of Fashion Design for 10 years and worked in professional theatre in Boston.

Creating Couture Embellishment is available from your local Independent Bookseller, Amazon, or Bookshop.