My Sewing Blog

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

I have so many photos to upload and edit. I really hate that part! This is a week's work. It doesn't seem like very much for a week though. I embroidered on Sunday, cut pieces out on Monday, put snaps on on Tuesday, sewed things together on Wednesday, sewed casings and put some elastic in on Thursday, put more elastics in, topstitched and put the last snaps on on Friday. Today (Saturday) I prewashed them all and took photos. I need to get faster at making things, or more efficient. I actually considered closing my shop this week because I have no support here. I had wanted to do something like this when my kids were small, but I knew I wouldn't have the time to do it. You'd think now, when your oldest is almost 18 you'd have the time. But no. You'd think that maybe you could go and work in your workshop and leave one of your older kids to take care of dinner so you'd be able to get a decent chunk of work done. You'd also like to hope that your p

I was talking to my mum earlier last week, she's just started making and selling baby hats, so we were talking about how business was going. My shop hadn't had a sale since the beginning of June. I think my mum has sold two of her baby hats. I said that I didn't expect to sell anything at the weekend as the weather was supposed to be nice (yes, we've actually been having summer here in Scotland!). I thought everyone would be outside enjoying the weather. I think I jinxed myself, in a nice way! On Friday two of my favourite nappies sold, then during the weekend I had two sales of the cloth pads I uploaded. I sold ten items altogether and now there's almost nothing left in my shop! I haven't been doing much shop related stuff lately, but actually selling stuff gave me a boost. I spent yesterday embroidering some nappies. I embroidered an owl which could have been amazing, but just didn't work out. For some reason the bobbin thread kept showing, especially on