Lady Catherine's castle: home of some fancy stitching

May 14, 2008, 12:41

Jesska Daugherty

WARRENSBURG, MO.--The castle is west on Highway 50. Take a right on 251st Street, and another right on the gravel road marked 200 Road. If you’ve reached Skyhaven Airport, you’ve gone too far. There will be a sign marked Lady Catherine’s. It’s the white building in the middle of the field.

Inside, the castle is divided into two rooms. The first room is a retail store that sells screen-printed and embroidered apparel, among other things. The second room is the workshop that houses five computers and the screen-printing and embroidery equipment.

Lady Catherine, known to her friends and customers as Cathey Silvers, is buzzing between the rooms. She’s wearing a University of Central Missouri polo, probably embroidered in-house, under a denim apron. A small pair of scissors and a tape measure hang from separate lanyards around her neck. She occasionally shouts over the whir of the giant sewing machines to her only employee, Debbie Richner, who is busy embroidering blue baseball caps for a local team.

Silvers dabbled in some counted cross-stitch and sewing when she was younger and began working at a local embroidery shop in 1990. About five years ago, Silvers opened her own store on the land she and her husband own.

Cathey Silvers first hoops shirts to be embroidered...

“[Embroidery] is one of those things you can’t really afford to do unless you do it as a business, because everything is so expensive,” Silvers said. “My husband said ‘I don’t care if you do this, I just don’t want to have anything to do with it.’”

Silvers’ husband owns and operates Silver Farm, a grain farm on the same property as Lady Catherine’s. Other than helping her get the shop off the ground, Silvers and her husband stick to what each does best.

and then loads them into the embroidering machine. (Photos by Wayne Dean)

“He doesn’t help me, and I don’t help him,” Silvers said. “I mean, if I have to pull him out of the mud, I will.”

One of the most difficult problems Silvers faced opening the store was learning how to run the equipment and to keep up with new techniques, fads and ideas. Silvers taught herself to operate the machines, using manuals, and got design ideas from magazines and friends. When Richner came on board two years ago, Silvers taught her how to run the machines.

“It was hard to learn how to program the machines,” Richner said. “I had a cheat sheet for a while. Three of the four machines are the same and one is completely different. Each program runs slightly differently. It’s a lot to remember.”

Most of the printing and embroidery is done by machine. Lady Catherine’s uses a software program called Corel Draw to make the designs. If the design is going to be embroidered, they must first digitize the art, which turns the print into a stitching pattern.

Embroidered apparel goes on metal hoops much like the wooden hoops used for hand embroidery.

“It’s called hooping,” Silvers said. “You make sure everything is good and snug and put it on the machine. We still have a wood hoop we use for jacket backs, but it’s all done by machine now.”

After the items are embroidered, Silvers and Richner check them for perfection and complete any necessary trimming.

Over the years, Silvers has embroidered and screen-printed apparel for people all over Warrensburg, including the Warrensburg Fire Department, Warrensburg Parks and Recreation and numerous organizations from the University of Central Missouri. Silver’s most famous order, however, was a shirt she made for President Bill Clinton.

Lady Catherine's houses a store front as well as a warehouse and a workshop area. (Photo by Wayne Dean)

“He was president at the time,” Silvers said. “It was a denim shirt with the American Embassy logo on it. I got a ‘thank you’ letter from the embassy that I kept for a long time. It made me feel good. It’s our claim to fame.”

Silvers got the order from a customer who lived on Whiteman Air Force Base and was later deployed to Turkey, where she worked at the U. S. Embassy. Although this order was unique, Lady Catherine’s has had several unusual orders.

“We had a lady bring in flag covers for motorcycles,” Richner said. “They were for the Honor Guard that uses flags when they drive to funerals. We embroidered American flags on the canvas sleeves that cover the real flags.”

Lady Catherine’s takes custom orders and has embroidered a wheel cover for an antique car and even a dog collar, but mostly gets orders for typical requests like screen-printing T-shirts, embroidering caps and sports uniforms or sewing high school letter jackets. The shop does embroidery for several other businesses and even takes trophy orders.

The two women stay busy running the store from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every weekday, but they rarely make apparel for themselves.

“Mostly, we wear screw-ups,” Silvers said. “Whatever we mess up, it’s ours. We’re so busy taking care of everyone else, we don’t make things for ourselves.”

Although summer is the slowest season, there’s always something to do at Lady Catherine’s.

“We’re always checking inventory, pricing, rearranging, but that’s fun. It’s fun to see the new things when they come in,” Silvers said.