Live it. Sew Crafty's New Chapter

If you know me or if you have been a reader for a while you may have noticed I have been a little quiet when it comes to talking about my shop lately. If you are new here you may not even realise that my day job is running our family business, a little sewing shop in my home town of Maidenhead called Sew Crafty. Well today I am letting you in on a not so secret, secret. We are opening an online store!

It is a project that has been over a year in the making, you may remember a post from last year where I hinted at making some big decisions 'Never Making Mistakes is a Mistake' and the day is almost here that I can direct you all, our lovely readers from all over the globe, to shop at my little home away from home on the interwebs. To be honest I am still finding this thought very overwhelming.

I have spoken before about how our family business came to be, how I have always been a person who wants to work for myself and how much I love what I do. But I am not going to lie to you the last year has been one of the hardest times in my life.

Sew Crafty, like many shops on our British High Streets, has been struggling to break even (to make enough money to pay our bills). Despite filling our shop, floor to ceiling, with beautiful things and sewing essentials to supply our lovely little towns every sewing whim, it has just not been enough. We are just not reaching enough people, so last year we made the decision to invest some of our family savings in setting up Sew Crafty Online.

It has been a year of lots of stress and tears, mixed with excitement and anticipation but it is almost time to reveal all our hard work to the world. I wanted to take the chance to share some advice for any of you who are at the beginning of a journey like mine. (by which I mean' things I wish I had done sooner')

• Plan, LOTS. But be prepared to alter your path. Don't be too fixated on your ideas of how you think things should be. You may find better ways of doing things, you just haven't thought of it yet. 
• Don't be afraid to ask for help. Think hard about your friend's talents and skills, they are your friends and they want to help you and see you succeed.  Find ways they can help you.  Most importantly talk to them about it because they are on your side, and if they can help they will.  
• Do your research.  Find out what people expect from what you are hoping to do. Think about what you expect, what do you like and not like about existing businesses like yours.
• Work with people you trust.  Make sure the people who are helping you, are people that will help you to achieve your goals.
• If you are working with a designer/supplier/estate agent or other professional, don't be afraid to ask them as many questions as you need to.  Don't feel like they are going to think that you are stupid, it is their job to answer those questions for you.
• Don't be afraid to nag those professionals to do their job if you feel you are being ignored, or don't have the information you need, but do be kind and appreciate them when they go the extra mile. 
• Aim high.  Make whatever you do, be the best it can be. 

I really hope that this may have helped some of you who are thinking of embarking on a new project or business, if you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments or find me on twitter @sammytvr. 

If you want to find out more about my little shop head over to our website or check out some of the posts in our archives, Sammy's home away from home, Sew Crafty...We are TEN, Live it. Sammy's Day Job and look out for the launch announcement very soon. Or sign up to our Sew Crafty Newsletter (bottom of our web page) to be the first to know!

Sammy xxx

 Live, Love, Make, Like, Share, Follow, Tweet, Pin, Add, Enjoy. 

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Makers Month: By Hand London

Today we want to talk about an independent, British company that we adore! Why do we love this company? Well, it is run by three super stylish ladies with tonnes of talent and vision. Two years ago they started a company and launched a kick-ass dress pattern range and with the help of a Kickstarter campaign are now embarking on bringing 'print your own designs' digital fabric printing right here in Great Britain. What is not to love!?

This photo from 'By Hand London' taken by Richard Round Turner.

By Hand London was created and is run by the gorgeous Charlotte, Elisalex and Victoria. The trio based in London create patterns based on classic silhouettes, uniquely named after the stylish ladies they know and admire. 

 ''We celebrate making, individual style and creative women, designing for those who love to dress up, stand out and customise their own wardrobe''

We took some time earlier in the week to have a chat with them about their experience with crowd funding program Kickstarter and how it has helped them achieve the dream of producing their fabric line and letting their customers create their own designs too. 

When did the idea for a fabric line become the next step for By Hand London, or was it always part of the plan?

It definitely was not on the agenda when we first launched, but was quickly established as Phase 2 just over a year ago when we had started to get into the swing of producing patterns. It seemed like a logical, and very exciting step - and we became all the more eager to get it off the ground as we saw companies like Spoonflower in the US doing so well.

What made you choose Kickstarter/crowd-funding rather than searching out private investors?

The wonderful thing about crowd funding is that it allows small companies to test the waters with a new (and very expensive) master plan. Just the fact that we made our target, shows us that there’s a big market for a print-on-demand fabric service and this will hopefully build our company to a point where we might be more attractive to investors. Needless to say, as a small company the last thing we want to do now is sign away all the equity! Crowd funding also serves as an indispensable PR tool and reaches out to a huge amount of people in anticipation of the Big Master-plan.

What are the main things you have learnt from the experience of using crowd funding?

Ummm…. Mainly that a good supply of Valium is definitely in order to keep the mini heart attacks at bay! Just joking - no Valium for us, but not joking about the mini heart attacks! The 30 day period that our campaign was live was possibly the most tense month of our lives - and this “Will we get it? Won’t we get it??” anxiety is completely unavoidable with an all-or-nothing crowd funding platform like Kickstarter. The only way we got through it was by keeping busy - hustle, hustle, hustle! Stay positive, stay proactive and if it all gets too much - take a well deserved break. Do everything in your power not to let the stress taint your working environment. It’s all about morale!

Is there anything you would have done differently?

Loads! We got so caught up in the fun of making the video and planning the launch that we may have run out of time to do some the more obvious things, like prepare press releases! Once it all kicked-off (‘scuse the pun) we were kind of left scrambling to actually let people know what we were up to! All’s well that ends well, though - despite our lack of forward planning we still made our goal and more! Phew!

What exciting things should we be looking out for from you girls in the future? 

Ooooh where do I begin?! The fabric printing will be very exciting and we’ve got loads of amazing artists and designers creating bespoke designs for us, as well as some fun fabric-related projects lined up too. We’ve also got five killer new patterns in the works, a DIY Weddings series for the blog, among other things. One thing’s for sure, life certainly won’t be boring here at BHL HQ over the coming months!

Both H and I really admire these girls passion and drive. They are super role-models for our industry and a great example of what can be achieved with a little style and a lot of determination. I contributed to their Kickstarter campaign and literally can't wait to see what these girls do next.

Want to find out even more about By Hand London head to their website, where you can also buy their stunning range of dress patterns. We also stock the full range at Sew Crafty, and they will be available on our online store when it opens soon.

Have you made any of the girls gorgeous patterns up? Do add a link in the comments below to pictures or blog posts so we can see how you got on.

Are you off to the Handmade Fair this weekend?? Let us know how you got on over on Twitter or Facebook.

Sammy xxx

Watch out for the last Who's Who of Makers Month next week if you like a bit of fabric printing.

 Live, Love, Make, Like, Share, Follow, Tweet, Pin, Add, Enjoy. 

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Live it: The Makery Re-visited

When we visited Bath a few weeks ago, we just had to go visit The Makery again.  Since we last went for a visit, they have moved to larger premises and so been able to expand what they do.  Plus they now have a gorgeous bright yellow door and a rainbow staircase!

They gave us such a great welcome and let us wander around checking out all their different rooms they now have.  'The Snug' and the larger workspace were our favourites.

We also got to have a chat with the lovely owner Kate about everything that has been going on lately...

For everyone who doesn't already know how long has The Makery been a business?  and a passion?
As a business - since 2009. We got the keys to our first location just 10 days after we had our first baby! We had been planning for a couple of years at that though.
As a passion - lifelong. It sounds so cliche, but it's really in my blood. My mum, Gran and Grandma were are/were all keen seamstresses.

How has the business changed since you started your journey? 
It's changed dramatically - reading our first business plan from 2008 the direction of the company was very different. We were purely workshop-based at the beginning. Our aim was (and still is) to teach as many people the joy of crafting as possible. Over the years, we have just keep finding more and more ways of doing that. 
We've just signed a deal with a company which has licensed our brand to release a range of kits and haberdashery in the UK and internationally, which is something we would never have dreamed would happen already. We'd never have thought we'd go on Dragons Den - I mean, seriously! But it turned out to be a great move for our business and a big learning curve for us too. In fact, we'd never have dreamed about the books either really - it's all exceeded our wildest expectations!

What are your most popular workshops? And what is your best seller in the Emporium ?
The sewing workshops always sell well, and upholstery has always been popular too. I suppose it feels like a really meaty skill where you can have fun revamping furniture. In the shop, we always try and stock a beautiful range of fabrics so they're probably our best seller. And our book sells really well too!

You have just moved premises, what motivated the move?
We hadn't anticipated having 2 premises at the start, but opened the shop just a year after we opened the workshop. It used a lot of energy and resources (financial and human) running the 2 separate premises. And we just felt that it would be beneficial in so many ways to house everything under one roof. It's not been an easy road though - the amount of space we needed in a central location was a big ask! We'd been looking for over a year. It's been incredibly stressful, but our team of staff have been wonderful. 

What is your favourite space in your new building? 
Ridiculously, I love the stock room! We've never had a proper stock room before! But in terms of the space it has to be our largest workshop room. It's so large, it gives us the opportunity to host all sorts of events that we could never have dreamed of before. Things like our weekly yoga classes that we run for all our staff members too - it's truly multi-purpose!

Any new furniture favourites you have picked up for the new space?
We salvage and get donated all sorts of things, and a couple of items are favourites in the new place. Firstly, a very old display model singer sewing machine donated by our surveyor's wife. It belonged to her grandma called Maud, who was a demonstrator for Singer. It's beautiful, so has pride of place in our shop. And we've called it Maud too! Then a shop in Bath was refurbishing the other week and were throwing out their old drawers. They're beautiful - perfect for us! They are glass-fronted like old apothecary drawers. We display all our pretty buttons and ribbons in them!

Did you enjoy writing the book? How did you find the publishing process? 
I love writing the book! It's like the ultimate school project - a dream come true! Some people come in knowing about the book, others find out about it when they're here. The publishing process was great for me - I have an agent who kept on my back telling me what I needed to do and why by. She was wonderful. 

What advice would you give to someone starting their own workshop space now?
Don't underestimate the amount of work involved! You need to REALLY want to do this!
Have a clear vision of where you're going: Plan things, write them down. I modify our business plan frequently to suit our business, but it's always good to have a document that I can refer to whenever I'm having a wobble!

Some very sound advice there from Kate.  We really enjoyed our visit, all the staff we met were so very friendly and we got to meet Rufus the dog, how gorgeous is he?!  I think that having a pet around always makes a space really homely.

Have you been?  Do you have a space like this near you?  We always love finding new workshop spaces and so do let us know in the comments.

H & Sammy

Book review: I Just Like to Make Things

January is all about making changes and getting to grips with all those things that you keep meaning to do and so this book by Lilla Rogers is the perfect January read.  I Just Like to Make Things is a book to find out what steps you can take to be better at your chosen creative subject.  Perfect for seeing whether you want to turn your passion into your job.

Firstly a bit about the Author, Lilla Rogers runs the Lilla Rogers Studio in the US which is an illustration agency representing artists in the US and across the world. They license and sell work for surface design, and accept commissions for editorial, graphic design, corporate and advertising clients.  Having an agent is more of an American thing to do to help you sell your work, or if you are a traditional artist in the sense of selling artwork.  For people who make things or are running things as a sideline, then having an agent would perhaps feel like a weird thing to do.  Although it can be great to get your work out there to a larger audience with smaller effort from yourself.  Its a bit like adding yourself to Etsy or Not on the High Street, as it gives you a wider scope but without having to market yourself as much as you would normally have to.

Anyway, back to the book.

The How to Make Great Art section gives you 12 steps to help your craft.  Lilla suggests that before you promote yourself you need to get really good at what you do.  Keep learning your craft and exploring, alongside keeping positive and pushing yourself to work harder.  Working for yourself means having the motivation and enjoyment of what you do and the 12 steps keep that in the forefront.

One of the main reasons people start their own creative business is to make some money on the side of their day jobs or just start up their own business doing what they love all the time.  In the book, Lilla gives you a guide to making that money and helps you remind yourself of why you do what you do, with some notes to write down on these pages.

Throughout the book their are exercises to see what drives you as an artist and get you thinking about your work.  The Nail polish colour game is great as it gets you to think of 5 colours that jump out at you out of the colours on display.  It helps you to think of the colours that you really like and perhaps choose some which are different than the usual thing you would go for.  Sometimes taking yourself out of the comfort zone can be good.

There are interviews too with different artists and creative people, all of which Lilla has represented somewhere along the line.  They give you advice on how they started, what drives them and how to make more money with your artwork.

The book has so much to read and take in, all things which can make you think about your work in a whole new way.  It is spiral bound which I always love as it means you can open the pages and not have to break the spine or have things holding it down to keep the pages open.

Throughout there are some great photos of Lilla's own work and her studio, which the nosey part of me loves.  The fact that the main points for Lilla are that your work should be the best that it can be, before you start to sell it, is a really refreshing change.   Most books highlight the way in which to sell your work, rather than the product itself.

As this book is from an American Author it is geared towards the US market and so some of the information and links are for US based companies and so you would have to research similar companies in your own country.  Also, the market for creative work would be different in another country and so you would have to consider these differences too.

This is a great book for getting your brain thinking and widens your scope for how and why you should be getting your work out there.  It is nicely designed and laid out and so there Graphic Design skills clearly were utilised by the publishers here.  It would be great to have a book like this from a UK perspective, but I guess we are still catching up with all the US creators out there and so it may well come soon.

Until then, its great to get some insight from someone with nearly 30 years experience.

Love it
H

What's Your Unique Selling Point?

There is so much planning and stress going on behind the scenes at Sew Crafty right now, I wish I could share it all with you, but until decisions have been finalised it has to stay a secret, I promise I will tell all when the time is right. Whilst I have been planning and stressing my lovely H has been keeping me motivated daily with quotes and business articles (love her!) One of the articles she sent me was by James Caan Entrepreneur and BBC Dragon, talking about U.S.P. or Unique Selling Point. 

You need to find that thing that you can offer that makes your business unique.

The article talks about a delivery company who are revolutionising online delivery to make it faster and more convenient for the customer, they have done such a great job that their company has just been bought by Ebay!  Why this company you may ask, simple, they had a great idea and made it work. They had a Unique Selling Point. They created a company that solved a problem. Not every business idea is going to be golden, you only have to watch an episode of Dragons Den to see that what you think is going to have mass appeal doesn't always translate into a fortune five hundred company.  However if you have an idea for a business, take some time to figure out what your USP is going to be, it can make the difference between success and failure.

If you are planning on starting a business there are lots of things to think about, one of the biggest to consider, that lots of people forget is to do market research. 

• Check out the competition, Google for businesses who do similar things to what you want to create and go and visit them, email them, make friends with the owners, they may be able to give you some incite into what they have found easy/difficult in their business, but don't be offended if they don't want to share all their secrets, you are going to be in competition with these people, not everyone takes that lightly.

• Work out who your target customer is going to be, you need to find out what they want from a business like yours, and what they think is wrong with other businesses or products like yours that already exist. 

•  Find online forums in your niche and get on there and post questions. Find local groups that may have an interest in your business and ask to go along, see what problems they have and think how your business is going to solve those issues. 

• You may find that the genius idea you had is actually already on your doorstep, maybe you can adjust your plans to work alongside the existing company to grow both your businesses together. 

Most importantly, you need to find what is special about you or your product, the thing you can offer that is better than the rest. This may be a product or a service or even yourself. This needs to be the thing you promote over all else, the thing that will set you apart from your competition. Whether it is bespoke millinery or life coaching, you need to find that thing that you can offer that makes your business unique.

USP is one of the things we are working hardest at for our own business at the moment. We have heard that another business very similar to ours is moving into our town. We have been doing lots of research into how we can set ourselves apart from them in order to keep our business going. It will mean a lot of changes for us, but hopefully all for the better in the long run for ourselves, our customers and our community. 

Check out James Caan's article here.

There are also some awesome articles and links on the Sewing Directory's Website if you are thinking about starting your own craft business, and this post on Rock and Roll bride has some great advice.

Sammy xxx

Never Making Mistakes is a Mistake

I have never been a fan of the word regret, I was always a person who took chances and lived with the consequences. I truly believe that we are who we are because of the experiences that we live through. As I get older this 'no fear' attitude is harder to uphold with the same blind stubbornness of my teens and 20's.

With more experience of life and business comes more knowledge and more reasons to be worried about what happens when things don't work out as planned. This is also the case as we take on more responsibility as adults, owning or renting a home for the first time makes us realise that the buck stops with us, If we don't pay the gas bill, we don't get to have hot showers. We learn from our mistakes.

I spend a lot of time at our shop helping out GCSE and A level students with their textiles projects and it makes me yearn for the days when I used to experiment with colours, textures and technique. When I used to try something just to see what the result would be. When I was at college we had the chance to fill endless sketch books with ideas and samples.  I can't remember the last time I filled a sketch book just because.

With running your own business it is even harder to experiment, the 'money' factor often stops an idea in it's tracks, committing a chunk of money to something you have no idea is going to work is a big gamble. Again responsibility ways heavy. At 21 I would have given it a try and if it went wrong figured out another way to pay the gas bill, 31 Year old me puts all my energy into making the idea work and am left with little to no energy and enthusiasm to figure out another way if it doesn't.

As an adult it can be hard to remember that nothing is impossible, I can't pinpoint the moment that changes for you, because it is different for all of us, but in order to create something special that other people want or want to be a part of takes one thing... A Risk.  The risk that it may not work out, the risk that the people you want to sell to may just not be interested in what you have to offer. The flip side of taking that risk is that something even more wonderful than you imagined might happen. It is not until you have taken that chance that you will know, in order to know if it is a mistake, you have to make it.

The reason I wanted to talk about this today is that I am currently in the middle of a big decision making process with the rest of my family for the future of our business Sew Crafty. Going back to what I was talking about in this post, trying to pull more of the things we can offer in to one, more diverse business. It is a BIG risk, but I am determined to bring a little more of my 21 year old self to the table and take the risk that could make our business everything we believe it can be.

Do it. Take the plunge. Take a risk

Sammy xxx

Read Pt. 1 of my quotes series here : Jack of all Trades, Master of None

Our Adventure at Home Barn

Earlier this year I discovered a little hidden gem, just a 10 minutes drive from where I live, I love it when that happens. Steve and I were driving to High Wycombe via Marlow one weekend and drove past a little collection of shops, I asked Steve if we could stop in on the way back to check them out, I am so glad I did. We had discovered Homebarn! 

I loved it there so much I took H back for a visit and to meet up with the one of the owners Sarah for a chat. 

Hi Sarah, Can you tell our readers a little about yourselves?  

We are Sisters in-law Sarah and Sally Wilkie and we run Homebarn.  We are partners with our husbands also and together we all run a design agency called The Narrative.  The Narrative is a multi-disciplinary agency encompassing Branding, Fashion, Web, Graphics and interiors.  Sally and I help the boys out mostly on the trade interiors side.  We are currently working on several hotels, bars and restaurants. As well as our day jobs we also both have young families, It is nice to have a carer that mean we can work with our families and can be flexible around our children.

How did Homebarn come about?   

Sally and her husband James returned from spending many years in the USA as fashion designers.  Sally was looking to combine her flair for interiors with a job which would allow her to work around her small children.  I had worked in retail interiors as a buyer for several years before starting a family.  We were both fans of vintage style and antiques and we began Homebarn by selling several pieces from our own collections privately and then realising that we would enjoy working together and creating a vintage homewares brand.  Homebarn was really begun as an extension of a creative hobby.

What is your favourite part of the business?   

We love shopping for stock, that is still so much fun.  We have met some lovely people along the way, many of our cabinetmakers and suppliers are now really good friends.  We love helping to style the shop and enjoy being hands on with the photography and social media side of the business.

Which of all the pieces you have recovered/restored has been your favourite?  

Old shop fittings such as Haberdashery counters are a favourite - in fact any piece of furniture with lots of drawers we can not resist! 

 

What is your least favourite part of running Homebarn? 

Hauling heavy pieces of furniture around is extremely hard work and not much fun.  Also It's very cold in the winter and in the mornings before we have lit wood burner it's really bitter.   

What does the future look like for you and the business? 

 Popping up elsewhere regularly seems to be on the cards in the short term, we are about to 'pop up' at Tent London and we have plans for other pop up's this year and next.  We are looking forward to working more with clients on the commercial side which is looking very busy for next year.  We are developing our own range of 'own brand' products including furniture, artwork and gift items.

If you could go back to the beginning what piece of advice would you to give yourself ? 

Don't try and cover all bases, stick with what you love and don't spread yourself to thin. 

Thanks so much to Sarah and her team for having us, I Love that the business grew organicly  from your passions, and that all the family are involved. Some great advice there for anyone starting a business. 

We had such a lovely afternoon looking around this little Aladdin's cave of vintage goodies. There were so many things that have been added to our wish lists after our visit. It was a pleasure to walk around the barn taking photos and dreaming of where we could incorporate pieces in to our homes and for me Sew Crafty. My favourite thing about Homebarn is the way they lay things out in mini dioramas, so things are sorted by room and displayed beautifully.

If you are near by its totally worth a visit, if you are a little further away, still worth a visit, and if you are even further away you can buy on-line!

All the details you need can be found on their website, go check it out, its just lovely.

H and Sammy xxx