Sometime next week my little
boutique design shop is going to close its 5,000th sale. I really had no idea when I made my first sale on July 17th, 2008, with this
Coffee Cozy that
I was launching a business that would eventually allow me to quit
working for the man and stay home with my children. Honestly, I was just
trying to feed my creative fire.
My pictures were blurry and I managed to capture my neighbors ugly
fence in the background, but I must have done something right. I still
think that even great pictures won’t sell items that aren’t cute, but
really cute items sell themselves, even when the photographer is a house
mom who’s had too much coffee.
I had a lull in sales for a couple of months, and then I started making various designs of
Monster Butts. I still think the Monster Butts are super cute!
Again, the picture! Did I really want to sell anything?
In 2009 I was selling at Farmer’s Markets and had not spent a lot of time on Etsy. I did make some hats for a
fundraiser, and the Monster Butts and their variations
were selling sporadically.
Then in November, 2010, I sold my first
cowl neck warmer circle scarf. At the time, had you told me this was only the first scarf of thousands that I would sell, I would never have believed you.
The first scarf, cowl, or whatever you want to call it that I ever sold on Etsy. Notice my pictures were getting better.
The scarfs began to sell regularly. At the time I was
scalloping the edges
on the majority of them. I later discovered that this technique was
hard on a sewing machine and was better suited for an overlocking
machine. This discovery was too late though to save my Husqvarna Viking
750, on which I made hundreds of these scarves.
The
problem with the design is that it requires some pulling on the fabric
to get the edges to curl, which means that the needle also gets pulled.
Pulling the fabric and the needle is hard on a machine, and as I
mentioned earlier, it about killed my Husqvarna. Unfortunately, it began
to die going into the holiday season of 2011, and for several weeks I
really thought I would have to close my
Etsy store.
With adversity and challenge comes new
opportunity and the chance for success, and so it was to be with my
sewing machine. The impending death of my favorite machine lead to the
subsequent purchase of my workhorse, the Singer 20u 109. I bought it at
the end of the Christmas rush of 2011. It was the purchase of this new
machine that opened up a whole new avenue for both my creativity and my
sales.
The learning curve was steep. The singer 20u
109 is not gentle. It is not quiet. It will ram a number 16 needle
through your pointer finger 4 or 5 times before you can get your finger
out of the way. There are no auto-settings. There is nothing digital
about the machine. It doesn’t make fancy stitches. It will however sew
through several layers of just about whatever fabric you put in it, and
it will do it very, very fast.
My creative juices went crazy when I began
to grasp just what I could do with my new machine. After some
experimentation with decorator weight cotton canvas, I unveiled my first
new design:
The Extra Large Beach Tote in Chevron. It was an instant hit. I sold 8 of them the first month they were available.
That was February 2012. From then until the end of October was a complete blur of
bags and scarves.
My Singer 20u 109 was constantly getting out of time to the extent that
my poor husband pretty much became an expert at repairing it. I would
find out almost a year later that the hook assembly had come damaged
from the factory.
Everything was too much. I was completely
overwhelmed. So I quit my “real job.” It was a big deal. I didn’t want
to let my family down, but I really believed I could do this, that I
could make this little business work, and be able to stay home with my
children at the same time.
And so here I am almost a year later closing
in on my 5,000th sale. Will the big sale be a scarf or a bag? Will it
be one of my new designs, like this
All Purpose City Tote? My husband would be excited if it was the really hip
camouflage two-sided scarf that he designed. Hint hint, ladies
:)
One thing you can be sure of is that no matter what the item is, I
loved making it! One thing I will not compromise on is that I must
continue making things that I love to make.
As I approach this milestone, I couldn’t
have gotten here without the help of some fabulous blogs, bloggers, and
fashion chicks. They are absolutely the best at what they do. Thanks
ladies!
