The weekend long read.
A few weeks ago I was re-writing the new ‘About Us’ page for the website and reflecting on how I started this business. It’s a funny thing trying to write your story in a couple of succinct paragraphs and it churned up some old memories.
A big turning point that influenced my business in the early days was going off to do a one month tailoring course in the north of England. There were two sides to this decision; on one side I needed some time to escape London after the pandemic and reflect on my career. As with all business owners it took a lot of energy and creativity to get through those months and I wanted a break from the relentless problem solving. The only way I knew I could do this was by physically being somewhere else so travelling 200 miles away seemed like a good option.
The other side to this decision was that I was really interested in tailoring and I wanted to invest in my skills. Having spent a couple of years teaching sewing classes I wanted to switch places and be the student. I had no idea how valuable that role reversal would be.
Before doing my tailoring course (at the Tailoring Academy in Macclesfield for those wondering) I had been sewing for 10 years which included a combination of studying at London College of Fashion, interning and working in the industry and 5 years of working on my own business. I was a confident seamstress and it was part of my daily life.
I can’t explain how refreshing it was to learn from someone else, to learn new skills and let myself be lead by the process instead of being in the driving seat. To sit and listen, follow the steps and almost meditate while doing so (even if the meditating had one mission, to solve my business dilemmas). The experience completely transformed my approach to sewing clothes. My technical ability improved drastically and my sewing pace slowed down, going from manically sewing to careful and precise crafting. I learnt to respect the process more, from the fabric to the tools and each individual technique.
Sewing your own clothes is to be continually learning and I intend to invest more time on tailoring classes in the future. I created our online workshops to share the skills I’ve learnt and I’ve since added to them with our capsule courses. These are designed to give a framework to your learning and get you off the ground with sewing your own collection alongside a class of other makers.
Your learning experience is important and if you’re ready to carve out the time for yourself the 3 Month Capsule Course is open for enrolling on for another 2 weeks. You’ll be learning some of the skills I learnt on my tailoring course and you’ll finish with 3 beautiful garments.
A few people have been asking about the timeline and whether they need to stay on track and the answer is no - you can sew at your own pace and you’ll have all of the content to keep after the course has finished. We’ve got lots of makers from all over the world signed up already and we’ll be launching the course forum next week!
If you have any questions you can just hit reply to this email,
Hetty
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