CaddySac

Sue Catherine of Greensboro couldn't find good lunch bags for her kids, so she decided to make her own. And before she knew it, teachers started calling because they wanted them and other students wanted them.

So Catherine moved the business from her kitchen, to her mud room, then out to the shed.

"I was blowing fuses left and right. I had a space heater out there, and all of a sudden, I would just lose power. It was really funny," she recalls.

That's when she realized she could start a business.

She called it CaddySac and began taking her fabric to a textile plant in Burlington to have her funky bags -- from lunch bags to gym bags and even reversible head bands -- made.

"It's fun for me to go in there and see my fabric, my designs being made then and there. Just to hear the machines going is music to my ears," she says.

It's also music to the plant's owner, Mark Fuller, who has put more people to work.

"People like Sue have allowed us to bring some people back," he says. "I've not been working a full crew, especially when we're slow in the wintertime, but I have been able to bring some people back that were on temporary layoff, and they were real tickled to get back."

The bags can be purchased at www.caddysac.com or in boutiques throughout the Triad and in 14 other states.

"I've grown up my whole life thinking N.C. is the capital for textiles and we just felt, why go anywhere else?" she says. "It's right here at our fingertips."