As a ballet instructor and dance studio owner, Diane Geragotelis has plenty to keep her on her toes.

But it’s her fingers that are getting the biggest workout these days.

Stretched out on the floor of her sewing room, Geragotelis has been been busy in recent weeks sizing up fabric to make costumes.

She’ll stitch for hours in the room that was recently remodeled for this purpose. The room is spacious enough to accommodate dozens of hanging costumes, preventing her husband from bumping into ones that used to hang from entryways all over their Oak Harbor home.

It’s been like this since Geragotelis opened The Ballet Slipper Conservatory in 1991 and particularly this time of year when her studio is preparing for the The Nutcracker.

The Nutcracker, with three performances on tap for Dec. 19-20 at Oak Harbor High School, has been known to make Geragotelis a little nutty.

Onstage, she’ll watch the choreographed moves of all her dancers yet also will keep an eye on the outfits they wear.

She makes all the costumes herself, which distinguishes her from most dance instructors, and admittedly makes matters harder on herself because she’s a perfectionist.

If the stitching isn’t just right, she’ll rip it out and start again.

Sewing marathons are nothing new when it comes to getting ready for performances. Because of choreography changes in the first act, Geragotelis needs to make 36 new costumes for The Nutcracker.

She was still stitching away this week.

“I’m sewing from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed,” Geragotelis said.

It’s not because she loves sewing. It’s because of a commitment she made when she opened her studio to allow her students to focus more on dance and not about how they’ll be able to afford to buy a fancy costume.

“When I opened, I said I wanted ballet to become a forefront in the kids’ heads that they can still continue to dance and won’t have to come up with tons of money just to be able to perform,” said Geragotelis, adding that costumes in catalogs she receives range from $70 to $400. “It’s special to be able to perform. So I took on the task of making the costumes.”

She did so without a stitch of training.

“People say to me, ‘Oh, it’s so nice that you like to sew,’” Geragotelis said. “It’s not a desire of mine. I like to dance. I just want to offer this to to the kids.”

At times, it leaves John Geragotelis shaking his head.

Such as the time two weeks ago when his wife stayed up all night and spent 23 straight hours finishing up costumes for a preview performance of  The Nutcracker at Summer Hill senior living community.

“I couldn’t afford to go to bed because I had to get those costumes done,” she said.

Geragotelis’ designs of what she wants to sew are in her head. She doesn’t put anything on paper first.

“I’m not an artist,” she said.

But her results have turned some heads and she’s expanded to create dresses for her and family and friends.

For now, The Nutcracker is front and center in her mind. In the spring, the plan is to perform Cinderella, which could mean all sorts of new costume possibilities.

“It’s a passion. It’s an obsession for her,” John Geragotelis said.

“An obsession?” his wife responded with an inquisitive look.

“She’s obsessed,” he said. “She’s absolutely obsessed with having all the costumes look good. That’s really part of the ballet. She’s actually let me and other people do scenery. She used to be obsessed about scenery. I’ve been telling her since day one, no one is coming there to see the scenery. They just want to see the dancers. But the costumes are part of dance, where scenery is not.”

A retired Navy pilot, John Geragotelis teases his wife, yet knows her heart is in the right place.

“My whole career in the Navy was based on training people to do their job and delegating and letting them do it,” he said. “A team is alway going to be more effective than one man. But Diane, when she has someone help her, stands there and watches them, so it doesn’t save her any time anyways. That part used to drive me crazy.”

Then his tone got more serious.

“I will say, the No. 1 thing, it’s so great these kids get to be in these beautiful costumes without having to pay for them and the studio benefits as a nonprofit because they get to use of them,” John Geragotelis said. “They can reuse them. It’s a good arrangement. Except for four or five or six weeks every six months when your house turns into a big sewing sweatshop, I don’t mind at all.”