Tuesday 11 March 2014

Sewing - a cushion commission, and a little sewing business business

A lovely friend arranged for some cushions to be made for her sofa. And they weren't quite right. So they came my way for a complete re-do.
Let's first say, My, this lady has some lovely fabric taste! Don't they look lovely? That leaf-print was in serious danger of being stolen by me. Lucky for her, I'm a goody two-shoes!
The fabric was a thin, dress-weight, so not ideal for cushions. It needed reinforcing with some interfacing. The cushion covers had been made several centimetres too big so they needed cutting down to size and then sewing back up again. And the zips were much too conspicuous, so they needed cutting out and replacing with invisible zips. Basically, yes, I sewed four new cushion covers from scratch.
It was a fiddly job, I'm not going to lie. And I got it wrong several times before getting it right, mainly due to ridiculous attempts to recreate serged seams on flimsy fabric without a serger. But I learnt my lessons and ended up French seaming the lot. For those of you who don't sew, that's basically a seam that's concealed within a seam, leaving no fraying edges.
These were my first concealed zips and I'm pleased with the results. And it felt lovely sewing something for someone else to enjoy. It felt more like a real sewing job than anything else I'd done before.
There are five or six weeks left until the Tiny One starts his six-hours-a-week at nursery. It'll take a little while to settle him in enough to leave him both mornings, but I hope to get four hours of clear sewing time out of it, and then another two or three evenings a week, of at least two hours each. And that will be the start of my little sewing business. I'm starting small and low-key, while my mothering commitments so overwhelm my sewing time. Ten hours a week to start with, and then in September it will build up to about 15 hours a week. There will be individual commissions, and there will still be gifts to sew, but I will mostly be focusing on home furnishings, especially curtains, and the quilts.
I just have to start earning some money: the pinch point has come. My full-time mothering was a vocation we had longed for and planned for, but one which we knew would need to transition back to a career as a working mother, once the littlest of our brood was ready for nursery and then school. And to get to sew for a job! There are many other things I could do but here I am with the one chance in my whole life to try and make a career out of something that I love, something that is borne of my soul. It's a dream to be paid for your passion. And you all know that I'm a dreamer. Cross your fingers and toes for me that it works out.

1 comment:

  1. good for you! fingers and toes crossed! S xx

    ReplyDelete

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