‘I did tennis skirts and seat cushions and car covers and kayak covers.’

She was selling handmade potholders door-to-door by the time she was 6, and helping her mother sew costumes for Sea World by the time she was 12. By now, 28-year-old Tina McKee is an old hand in the sewing business. She employs 28 people as owner of Seams Unusual, which specializes in designing and sewing flags and banners for sporting events, universities and real estate openings. Since graduating from high school a year early so she could “get out and work full-time,” McKee has designed and sewn everything from “inflatables,” the giant promotional balloons used to advertise events, to kayak covers. She lives with her husband and three children in the Bay Park area. McKee was interviewed in her office by Times staff writer Kathie Bozanich and photographed by staff photographer Vince Compagnone.

My mother had always sewn. She started out doing dressmaking and eventually got into costuming for Sea World. That’s what I grew up around.

I was cutting and sewing and helping my mother with her work for Sea World by the time I was 12, and by the time I was 16 I was doing errands and going over to the park, delivering and maintaining and designing the costumes. They started the parade that year, and I designed all the parade costumes. That was my first major project.

Then we began working for this one company that does inflatables. The first project we did for them, the owner handed me an Academy Award statue, the actual statue, and said, “Can you make this 50 feet tall?”

My mom and I looked at each other and said, “Sure.” And so I scaled it up from that and figured out how to make it out of vinyl and how to make it inflate and keep the muscular structure he has, and how to erect it because it’s so small at the lower legs and it would try to flop over. It was on top of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in time for the 50th Academy Awards ceremony.

We’ve done so many bottles and cans, the Pink Panther, a 40-foot John Denver for Reno and Tahoe, and a lot of trade show items. We made 80 inflatables in two years.

Then we went on hiatus for a while. I was a manager of a restaurant for a time, and was working two other jobs as well. After about two years, starting it up again was really the only thing to do. Management was fine, but I had to have something of my own, do something on my own.

I put an ad in the Pennysaver that said, “Sew what? Anything. Even if it seems unusual.” Boy, did I get calls. I did tennis skirts and seat cushions and car covers and kayak covers. Anything people threw at me I did. Eventually, I found a niche in flags and banners.

We worked out of my garage for about a while, but it was getting to be too much. I had three children at home and all. The company that rents this property said, “You want to go from a garage to 10,000 feet?” So I had to convince them.

Only when I have to do I do any hands-on work now. You’ll see me running around the shop, and sometimes I end up painting posts, or rolling up banners, or cutting. I don’t plan for myself to be out in the shop, but it just happens that way.

If all of a sudden it was gone, and assuming I couldn’t start something back up again, who would ever hire me? They’re not going to believe this 28-year-old person who has been through three world wars, professionally. They won’t believe that I can do what I can do. I’ve convinced a lot of people of a lot of things along the way that I can make things happen. I guess I’d just have to do that again.

Eventually, I’ll get this business established enough so I can pursue my other two dreams. One involves making fashion videos, the type that can run in the department stores. I discovered that, at Christmas time, a lot of men buying clothing as gifts for women could be helped tremendously if they see models wearing these put-together outfits, and then be told where they can find the outfits in the store.

Other than that, I want to build an office building. I want to design it, see it all the way through. I’ve always promised myself I would have an upstairs suite in my own office building by 1992.