Published: September 28, 2009 08:04 pm      

NC girl runs business making sweaters into scarves

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Every Wednesday night after she and her parents have supper at her grandparents' house, Logan Prysiaszniuk heads downstairs to her workshop.

Logan, 11, works alongside her mother, Kristina Prysiaszniuk, and her grandmother, Faye Kapp, to make colorful scarves from recycled sweaters. The basement workshop is the manufacturing center for Logi B. Designs, the company that Logan started last year with a $2,500 startup loan from her grandmother.

The Winston-Salem Journal reported that Logan has been drawing and designing apparel since she was 5 and big enough to hold her own sketchbook. A lesson in recycling at Pinebrook Elementary prompted her to consider how she could make recycling fashionable, and she was inspired to start her venture.

"We were having a lesson on global warming. I want to be a fashion designer one day, and I just had this idea for scarves," said Logan, a sixth-grader at North Davie Middle School.

She scours thrift stores for old sweaters, and as word of her business has grown, so has the number of donations.

She looks for unique patterns, bright colors, sweaters that do not unravel and lightweight sweaters for spring scarves.

During their weekly Wednesday-night work sessions, the three of them chat and watch America's Got Talent. Bins of bright yarn line the workshop walls. Stacks of colorful sweaters wait to be cut into strips. Containers of buttons and costume jewelry are lined in drawers, and two sewing machines sit atop a work table.

Kristina Prysiaszniuk's job is to cut the sweaters into widths of consistent size for her daughter's designs. Logan combines textures, patterns, and chooses buttons and costume jewelry to embellish the scarves.

"We figured out that each scarf takes about two hours to make," Kristina Prysiaszniuk said.

The average cost is $18 for a child-size scarf and $29 for the adult size. Logan sells her creations in Hip Chics, the boutique her mother owns in Clemmons.

Earlier this month, Logan, her mother and grandmother attended a show in Ohio. Logan sold 83 of her scarves there in five hours.

At a recent trade show, Logan's mother and grandmother were wearing Logan's scarves and were approached by a woman who owns a boutique in New York. She wanted to sell Logan's scarves in her boutique.

Logan doesn't sell her scarves online, but she does take e-mail requests for specific colors.

"It's grown so fast. Scarves are just so hot right now. Even guys are wearing them," Logan's mother said.

"Not my scarves," said Logan with a middle-school girl giggle.

With the attention has come a new wrinkle. As a small-business owner, Logan has had to figure out how many scarves she can reasonably make to match demand.

She has hired a woman to help with the sewing. Her grandfather, Jerry Kapp, has been enlisted to snip yarn for fringe while he watches ballgames on television.

"My goal was to help pay for college, but I have to be able to do my homework to get into college," Logan said.

By tying her values to her passion for design, Logan is following a path that many other young entrepreneurs take, said Bren Varner, the director of the University Center for Entrepreneurship at Wake Forest University.

"Part of it is that students start to look at entrepreneurship as taking social responsibility and a way to pursue interests that they have," Varner said.

In a 2007 survey of nearly 2,500 youth from ages 8 to 21, the Kauffman Foundation found that 40 percent had either started or intended to start businesses, and 37 percent said they would consider it.

"Kids just make such great entrepreneurs," he said. "They're not beaten down yet by all the other obligations and everything else."

Logan's scarf business is thriving, and her classmates sometimes ask her for advice on how they can start their own ventures.

However, the best part isn't the final product, her grandmother says.

"I just love being able to spend the time with her, even it if it is packing up for a show. She is such a special girl," Faye Kapp said.

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Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.