My Sewing Blog

Yet another post about a sale! I decided to do a 20% discount for Black Friday, through till Monday. Things have been dead in my shop over the last six weeks or so. August and September were quite good months and at one point I hardly had any stock left, but during October I think I only had one sale. November has been quiet too up till now. I sold an item last week, finally hitting 40 sales! I had another sale yesterday when I started my Black Friday sale so I'm now at 41 sales. I'm still unsure about whether to continue with this business. Sometimes I feel quite positive about it, but other times, like where there are no sales and I still have a ton of credit card debt, I feel like it's pointless. Any new ideas I have involve me having to spend money on new/different fabrics, so they're not worth pursing at this point because I can't afford it. I can't even afford to sew any personal projects for myself at the moment. I think my plans for now are to try an...

I decided to have a 10% off sale on my cloth pads to celebrate the Women's Environmental Network's Environmenstrual Campaign. This is my first ever sale! I've sold two things so far, but who knows if it's because of the sale or not.  There are more discounts from other companies  here  on the WEN website of you're looking for a bargain!

I haven't updated here in about a month. I haven't had much to post about though. I think I'm still a bit burnt out after all the summer sewing I did. The weather hasn't been great either. Even though it's warm inside my workshop I don't always feel like trekking through the rain or cold to get there. I'm actually thinking about bringing my sewing machine inside to make a new batch of cloth pads. I still haven't finished the sweatshirts I started, mainly because it involves re-threading the overlocker and I don't like doing that! I need to make an effort though because it's sweatshirt weather now. I uploaded a few things to my shop earlier this week. It's always disappointing when you upload new stuff and it gets zero views. It might be that it takes a bit of time for the items to make it into the search results or something. I also uploaded some more cloth pads about two weeks ago. I've been selling a few things here and there, but ove...

I counted up all the things I've cut out. There was over a hundred! Okay, lots of them are cloth pads, or at least the topper parts of cloth pads. I'll need to get some more flannel for the wing parts and probably some more plain white PUL in order to finish them. I have quite a lot of fitted nappies cut out but the fabrics I need to complete them are quite expensive, so I probably won't finish them for a while, unless I can think of a cheaper way to make them. I'm working on the pocket nappies that I have cut out first because I have all the stuff for them. Or I did. I just ran out of elastic. I had a small roll of it! I've also used up 4 1000m spools of white thread since I started too. I need to finish the last all-in-one that's ready to sew but I'm still working up the courage to do that! I have several more cut out but again I need some more stuff to finish them. My plan is to finish up everything I possibly can with what I have here before I buy any ne...

School is back and I have two taking exams so it's going to be a lot of work. As home educators it also costs us around £100 per exam, so it's going to be expensive too. I won't be able to spend hours in my work shop now. I'm glad I made my goal of making 50 items in August though! I think I made about 68 in the end. I thought this month I'd set a goal of doing something sewing related for at least 30 minutes a day. I have quite a lot of odd bits and pieces cut out. There are nappy cuts, cloth pads and some baby trousers. Cut out pieces are pretty much useless and have no value so I really need to get them sewn up so I can sell them. I have a lot of money to pay back. There seems to be way more stuff than I remember cutting out. Maybe I've been cutting things out in my sleep?! I think there are 8 embroidered nappies, a few I abandoned because I wasn't happy with them but looking at them now, there's nothing much wrong with them. I can sell them as se...

I worked on this today. It's the first garment I've sewn in ages! I've been working with tiny things lately so I wasn't used to the bulk of a full sized item of clothing. I'm not finished yet but I'm really not happy with it. Firstly, I've messed up with the stripes. They don't match up. I remember cutting it out and making sure that the stripes on the front and back would match but I don't remember what I did with the sleeves. I thought maybe it was something to do with the raglan sleeves. I'm not a fan of raglan sleeves normally. One seam seems to match up pretty well but the others are completely off. It's disappointing and I don't have any more of this fabric left to try and recut them. I had a bit of trouble getting the pieces to match but I think it might have been my cutting since I'm using a knit fabric. I had huge trouble with the under arm seams. They don't match at all. I could have matched them if started pinnin...

I thought I'd make a new post for this since the last post had got quite long. There will be more crappy phone pics here, sorry. I've spent most of the day working on some Opulent Monsters AIOs. They are HARD. I knew from reading the instructions that attaching the inner sections together was going to be difficult and I wasn't looking forward to giving it a go. The first one I basted in was tricky but I thought it looked okay, no tucks or folds or anything. Once it's basted you're supposed to overlock it. That ruined it. It's really hard to see what's going on with my overlocker so it ended up with loads of tucks and looked terrible. I ended up unpicking all the overlocking and starting again. This time I decided that after basting it, I'd stitch a line of permanent stitching at 1/4 of an inch and then overlock. It looked okay after I did the line of stitching but I chickened out with the overlocking. I did a zigzag over it instead, because who is going ...

Earlier this week I said that if I'd had no sales by Sunday I'd call it quits. It's Sunday night and I haven't sold anything. Most of the 12 nappies I uploaded don't even have a single view, so it seems that this isn't working. I have a pretty big problem though. After floundering around at the start trying to make things with very little money, I decided to see if I could get a credit card. Even though I don't have a proper job or income, one of the banks gave me a credit card. So I bought a bunch of PUL, flannel for some new cloth pads and other bits and bobs. All the time I was ordering this I was calculating how much profit I could make etc and everything seemed like it would work out fine. But if no one is going to buy anything I've made, how am I going to pay the money back to my credit card? At this point, even though I've made loads of items, I don't think I've made enough of them to cover the credit card bill, even if people were buy...

I think last time I updated I'd completed 33 items. Over the last couple of days I've finished 29 more cloth pads, which takes the total to 62 items made this month! I did say I was going to make some fitted nappies, AIOs and other stuff but I haven't got round to that yet. Most of the stuff is cut out for them so I might make a start on them. I think I might sew up the pocket nappies I embroidered recently though. I really need to stop making pocket nappies because I've hardly sold any. They're obviously not very popular items. The last pocket nappies I put in my shop (the robots and dog ones) have hardly had any views, and almost none of the new ones I uploaded have had any views yet. Views and visits are picking up a bit though, but still no sales yet. I need to pay my credit card bill for this month... Luckily I had a bit of cash set aside for that. I'll add some new photos here tomorrow once the new cloth pads are washed and dried. Maybe I'll have fin...

A bit of a late update... Total for week three was a measly 11 cloth pads. It feels like it should be more. There are about 30 pads in a half finished state but I actually only completed 11. So I'm on 33 out of 50 items now. I spent the last few days taking photos and uploading them. My cloth pad photos look horrible for some reason. I think I want to retake them. My shop now has 32 items in it, which is the most it's ever had. I feel very disillusioned though. I've been working constantly for around three weeks and all I have to show for it is 33 items. There's about £400 worth of stock in my shop now. Minus roughly 10% for all the fees, so that's about £360. That won't even cover what I put on my credit card to buy all the materials I've bought recently. Once I complete another batch of items then maybe I'll start to make a profit, but it's not very motivating. It doesn't feel worth it. Just to make it even less motivating, I woke up th...

It's been really slow going over the last few days. Probably because I cut out far too many items. I said I'd make 7 of everything and ended up making 12 nappies. This time I have around 40 cloth pads. Ever so slightly more than 7! Sewing on the line rather than following a seam allowance seems to be what slowed things down. I think it's worth doing though. My hands are killing me from snipping notches and trimming pretty thick seam allowances. This is what I've achieved over the last couple of days. Today I top stitched around the wing sections, which didn't take all that long compared to how long it took me to actually sew the wing parts together. Now I just need to cut the Zorb and stuff it inside the toppers, top stitch and then stitch the topper to the wing part. I'll need to order more Zorb because I definitely don't have enough for 40+ pads. I am taking a break for the rest of the evening although I feel strange about it. I've been worki...

This is what I've made so far. 12 pocket nappies (I still need to cut the threads though) and three patchwork covers.  Some cloth pads with jersey and Windpro backing (except the one with purple wings. It's a flannel pantyliner). I don't really like the way they turned out. These are jersey too. There's brown with llamas and some left over monster print that I cut some nappies from. They're both paired with black jersey. Jersey pads are a bit harder to sew than the flannel ones. I still have to cut the threads on these too. These are two embroidered nappy cuts. I wasn't planning on making any more nappies but then I saw these designs and I had to make them. These are made from some flannel scraps I had left over from another project. They just need stitched onto some backers now.  These are some new flannel prints.  Even more flannel prints. The monsters are going to be paired with grey flannel I think. Even more flannel pads. I bou...

Things seemed a bit more productive this week. Total: 12 pocket nappies 8 cloth pads So 20 items this week plus 2 covers from last week, so that's 22 items out of 50. Next week I should hopefully have finished a bunch more cloth pads. Yesterday was a bit of a disaster though. There was a power cut, well, not a proper one, just some problem with our house where the power to the sockets upstairs went out. For some reason that took out the power to my workshop outside. The power went out while I was in the middle of stitching out an embroidery design too. I was also prewashing some fabric and tumble drying another batch. I managed to get power back to my workshop in the evening but my embroidery design was screwed up. The power is still out upstairs today. An electrician is coming tomorrow. I managed to finish my washing by running an extension cord from a downstairs socket. I even ironed it! Normally I'm allergic to ironing. It's some new flannel that I'm looki...

Total items made this week is: 2 covers And that's it. It doesn't sound like much. I did spend a whole day putting snaps on. My arm was killing me... I spent another whole day cutting out all the inners, pocket pieces and backings for the embroideries. I then spent a day hemming the pockets and the wicking fabric. It was going quite well until I came to hemming the black wicking fabric. The black looks exactly the same as the white and other colours, and the black thread is made by the same company that makes the white thread so I have no idea why I couldn't hem them. The tension was all messed up and it either ended up tangled or too tight. It took me hours to figure it out. In the end I changed to the smallest needle I had (out of desperation really!) and that somehow magically worked. Next week should be much more productive since everything is cut out ready to sew. I've sewn together all the pocket nappies I had cut out (there's 12 altogether rath...

I decided I'd challenge myself to make 50 items for my shop this August. And it's August tomorrow! I also decided I'd go on a diet in August (ugh!!). Hopefully I'll be so busy making things that I don't have time to snack. I finally managed to order the fabric and snaps I need to finish/make new things. None of them have arrived yet but I still have some things I can get on with tomorrow. I wanted to finish the covers I started, and the pocket nappies I've embroidered. I tried to order a load of bamboo fleece so I could finish off the fitted nappies I started but again nearly everywhere was out of stock. I tried to order 3 metres from one place but they only had 1 metre left in stock. Hopefully I'll find a source and manage to finish them this month. I want to make some more cloth pads and then some wet bags and some of those little hanging strap things you can snap to your pads. Or nappies I suppose. To make 50 items I figured I'd have to make 7 of ea...

I've been working on some more things for my shop. I've been a bit short of cash so I haven't been able to buy more snaps and wicking fabric to finish them all yet. I also need bamboo for a bunch of fitted nappies I've cut out. I've discovered that I have no clue how to run a business. I'm not sure how to budget. So far I've used all the money I've made to buy new fabrics or supplies. I haven't quite figured out how I'm supposed to make a profit yet. Surely there will be a point where you've built up enough supplies that you can actually keep some of the money you make? I'd like to have some spare cash so that my kids can go swimming and stuff during the summer. I have tons of scraps of PUL and hate throwing things away, so I thought I'd trim the scraps down into squares and sew them together to make some covers. I don't recommend doing this because it takes forever! I'm not too sure how well they'll work either because ...