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Young Entrepreneur, 11, Recycles Sweaters to Make Scarves

Winston-Salem, NC – 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.

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.

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