Fruit From My Hands

When people find out I sew, the first thing out of their mouths is one of two things.  One response is “I have some pants that need hemming. Can I get you to do that?”  The other response is “I bought a sewing machine because I wanted to learn to sew and it is still in the box.”  Sometimes that second response will vary in that they have taken the machine out of the box but have not proceeded further.  Lately, I’ve been trying to find a profitable outlet for my sewing skills and knowledge.  I’ve been pursuing several different ideas until reading the post, The Commitment Phobic Creative, by Braid Creative & Counsulting.  They advise making a list of “all the things you can or want to do in your creative business“, then “crossing out the ones that you haven’t actually been paid for in 6 months.”  (If you wish to re-live my original drama, see my earlier post.)

So, here we are, weeks later, with list made and items crossed off and some very real soul searching.  And, as bad as I hate to admit it, EUREKA! I may have found the answer.  Fingers-crossed, hold your breath, I may have found a niche that needs me. All of my paying and non-paying interactions with folks concerning sewing have been the above two responses.  So, why not focus on that?  There must be a need, right?

A couple of ladies at church used the two responses I mentioned earlier.  So I set about to come up with a means to teach them to get that machine out of the box and conquer their fear.  I stumbled across All People Quilt’s 1-Million Pillowcase Challenge. I developed a quick little learn-to-sew class around making a pillowcase.  The goals of the class were to get participants sewing on their machine with some confidence and completing a project.  I made up silly little invitations, booked the church fellowship hall and invited six ladies.  Five of them came!  I provided assistance to those that needed their machines set up and provide fabric kits from my stash so there would be no stress if mistakes were made on their own personal fabric.  Five ladies walked out of the hall two hours later with a completed pillowcase.

You would need to ask them, but I believe from their responses after class, they enjoyed themselves.  Many of them have requested more classes.  They unanimously have requested an alterations class.  So I’ve been researching it and writing a lesson plan.  Every time I talk about what I am doing, I gain one or two more interested students.  So, here we gooooooooooo.