How to turn your sewing hobby into a successful business

Starting your own business is no easy task in itself, and turning that same business into a successful one is even harder, naturally.

But it’s not impossible, far from it. With enough drive, effort, persistence, ingenuity and of course a bit of money, practically anyone can do it, they just require proper guidelines and instructions, as well as support and encouragement. Transforming your home sewing hobby into a business will not be easy.

When it comes to sewing, pretty much anyone with a sewing machine and some decent skills can start his or her home business which will either focus on garment repairs and alterations or on designing and producing entire garments from scratch. But will it become a successful home business? Maybe or maybe not, it depends on their decisions and ideas.

So what does a person need to do in order to achieve this goal? What should he or she keep in mind during the process? How can someone turn their hobby into a successful source of income and a potentially well-known brand? Let’s find out right away.

Choose your sewing business speciality

Some people like to say that it’s better to be solid at a lot of things than to excel at only one while being bad at everything else. Well, this is both false and true, depending on your own set of skills. Expertise in an area is perfect if you’ll use it, not exactly if you won’t. On the other hand, if you’re the type that’s solid at everything, you have a pretty nice foundation for further specialization since you’re not starting from scratch. In that case, it’s wise to try and polish one area of expertise. No customer would choose a tailor who’s decent at everything but not exactly great if there’s a tailor who’s amazingly skilled at whatever the said customer needs to be done. It’s like wanting to drink orange juice. You can buy a multivitamin taste that includes orange, but why do that when you can drink orange juice specifically?

Also, trying to do every kind of sewing work is very time demanding which leads to organization complications. Tasks that require more time will get in the way of you finishing the less time-consuming ones and vice-versa. That’s why you should choose a certain speciality and only accept jobs that fit the range of that speciality.

When deciding what type of home sewing business you’ll be running, there’s a lot of different choices you can make, depending on your field of work. From repairs to designing, men’s or women’s wear, formal or informal garment, costumes or individual pieces and so on and so forth. We’ll cover a few most basic ones so that you can reach a conclusion more easily.

Repairs and alterations

This is the easiest kind of work you can focus on when looking at the required skill level. You don’t need to be an expert at sewing or embroidering in order to be able to do these tasks, intermediate sewing skills will be just enough. Which makes this a great choice for relatively fresh sewing enthusiasts.

If you decide that this will be your speciality, you’ll be dealing with tasks like hemline alteration, sleeves and waistline adjustments, patching uptorn or sliced garments, buttons and zipper replacements and similar. You won’t have to waste a lot of time on each job you accept since they require very little time to be finished which means you’ll be able to accept a lot of them if you wish. They bring in a small amount of money individually but if they pile up, you can get yourself a favourable paycheck.

Custom sewing

This kind of work requires more time but it also requires adequate communication skills. Customers will be coming to you with a certain idea on their mind, regarding the piece they wish you to make, and you’ll be the one to provide them with clothing that’s as close as possible to the thing they imagined. Obviously, most people don’t really understand how and why something is sewn the way it is which can lead to them requesting something impossible. You need communication skills in order to explain to them why that can’t be made and what can be made instead. Also, you should know how to politely let them know if the clothing piece doesn’t suit their physique and overall visual appearance so that they can focus on a different model.

If you decide to do these kinds of assignments and make it your speciality, you’ll be earning a pretty nice amount of money for each job you take. Your tasks will range from suit tailoring to dressmaking, casual clothing to sportswear sewing, costume making to bathing suit creating and so on, depending on what you want to accept as your task. As mentioned before, they will require more time with all the tryouts and measurements taking as well as the actual designing and sewing so you won’t be doing a lot of them on a monthly basis but even so, your earnings won’t be low for sure.

Fashion designing

This speciality is definitely the hardest one and potentially the least profitable. However, at the same time, it could be the most profitable one and the one that may turn your business into a well-renowned one. Usually, a fashion designer invents fashion pieces and sews them by himself or herself. Nowadays though, it’s not uncommon to find one that doesn’t sew at all but instead just comes up with creative and original concepts and then either sells them or lets someone sew it for them so that it can be promoted on a runway or in a better clothing shop.

If you go with this kind of specialization, the amount of work you’ll be doing and the amount of money you’ll be making pretty much depends only on your actions and decisions. Since you won’t be having customers in a traditional sense, nor will you have deadlines and tasks other than the ones you’ve set up yourself, you’ll enjoy unlimited freedom and ideally, great inspiration. So if you manage to earn some money along the way, this could turn out to be an almost perfect job for you.

Plush toys sewing

Even though it may sound like it’s far from the sewing world, toy manufacturing actually mostly relies on sewing because the majority of toys produced nowadays belong to the plush toys category.

You can come up with unique plush toys or just recreate some already familiar types, it’s up to you. As far as earnings go, as long as you manage to attract the targeted audience, you’ll most likely earn a fine pile of money.

Tips and tricks for sewing business success

After you’ve carefully and wisely decided what your speciality will be, it’s time to try and make your home business as best as it can be. Let’s take a look at some handy ways to achieve that.

Marketing is crucial

Whether you’re selling services or items, your main task, apart from the actual work, of course, should be to try and advertise your business, services or goods. Sometimes, people without much skill get plenty of customers just because they managed to create an amazing marketing plan and present themselves to a broad audience.

Create pages for your business on social networks and put a lot of pictures and videos of your handiwork out there. Make interesting and informative flyers and hand them out around your neighbourhood. And lastly, if you have enough time, go to your local shops and craftsmanship meetings and introduce yourself to all of the potential customers you find there.

Professionalism is your forte

Never ever disregard this hint. Whatever you do, conduct yourself and act professionally. Provide your customers with the best possible version of what they desire and do so on time, while also trying not to have very high prices for your services. If a customer realizes that you are indeed a professional, they will surely have faith in you and your work, which will bring them to you over and over again, making them your regular customer.

Keep improving

If you want your business to grow and become successful, then it’s absolutely necessary for you to keep improving. Always try to learn something new, attempt something difficult and offer higher quality to your customers. Invest money into your business as well, it will undoubtedly payout.

Upgrade your skills, upgrade your tools, expand your influence and you’ll end up with a very successful business.

Believe in yourself

Sometimes, this turns out to be the hardest part. But if it were easy, everyone would do it. If you don’t believe in yourself and in your business, then you won’t become successful. If, however, you have faith in your own potential and capabilities, then other people will as well which will help you achieve your goals.

With this, we’ve done everything we can in order to help you turn your home sewing business into a successful one. The rest is up to you. Go get them now!