Sewing With Nancy

Sewing and quilting are very personal crafts. So is the business of creating with needle and thread. Please welcome Stephanie Struckmann via Skype who has made the art of sewing her business a business within her home. Great to see you again, Stephanie. You too, thank you for having me. I'm so excited. Oh, I'm glad to interview you. Tell our viewers your business experience of setting up a sewing studio a learning lab within your home. When did you start, Stephanie? I started five years ago. I started teaching sewing lessons probably six or seven years ago when I worked for a small sewing machine shop. One of the managers suggested that I start teaching and I took her up on it right away. Then the machine shop probably within a year or two announced that they were closing. They were very grateful to allow me to e-mail their community group that they had kind of built up just letting people know that I still wanted to teach sewing classes and that if anybody was interested to please let me know. So I started an e-mail list. I told them I was getting married and I was graduating and I still wanted to teach sewing lessons. I talked to my then fianc about doing that after we got married and he said, yeah, definitely. So as they were closing I purchased a couple of student machines. Good. Yeah, we talked about-- Originally, it was in one room. It just wasn't working out. It was right in front when people walked in the door. I kind of wanted the house to be more homey. Sure. So I talked him into moving it into our living room with a fireplace in it. I like the fireplace as a thread rack. That's very clever of you. Yeah, yeah. It was a nice flat space to kind of keep it out of the way and make it pretty. How many machines do you have set up in your sewing studio? I have three main ones. I try to keep my classes if it's not a private lesson, to two to four students. The classroom I originally had it in could fit six students. I had about six machine that I could kind of rotate through. But then I kind of decided, six to eight students sometimes is a little bit more difficult especially when it's children. So we decided to move it into the other room and so I try to keep classes from two to four students because it's a little bit smaller. You have some interesting categories that you teach. You mentioned younger girls or young boys learning to sew but you have some other combos or other options for teaching. Yeah, definitely. I get a broad range of people. Yeah, I like the kids classes. I start from seven and up and sometimes the parents decide whether seven is too young. I've had some really great sewers at seven. Then I've had a lot of moms and daughters which can be a really fun bonding experience for them and for me to get to know them and their relationship. And then a lot of women, just friends that want to get out and do something or young moms that want to sew things for their kids or home dec. Sure, well, that's quite a variety. If someone was thinking about starting a sewing business within their home what would be your top two recommendations or suggestions to them to give them business advice? I think just to make sure that you have a good spot that you can really call I don't want to say home but kind of, you know, home for your business that can be comfortable. You definitely when you're bringing students especially kids into your home you definitely want to make sure that it's comfortable and that parents feel comfortable leaving their kids there. I even have a spot that if parents want to stick around while their kids are in class they can kind of sit there and read a book or check e-mail or whatever. Sure, what a great idea. What's the biggest challenge that you've had over the years of teaching sewing within your home or having your home business? You know, I would say that the biggest challenge and something I kind of touched on earlier was classes that are too big especially when it's kids. You know, when it's adults adults can be more patient if you're helping other students and they need help. They can also look over the shoulder of someone else and be like, oh, okay, that's what I need to do. Whereas children, if you have a classroom of six to eight new sewers that don't know what they're doing it can be really overwhelming unless they really pick up on it. But you hate to leave somebody behind who actually is doing a really good job and understands but you know, they're waiting for other people who need help. That might be a situation in a lot of classrooms in general. In other words, less is best for beginner sewers. Yeah, I like the two to four, is a good number. Well, Stephanie, thanks for the advice. Good luck as you continue to teach sewing to a variety of ages and good to see you. Thank you, you too, always good to see you. Well, thanks to Stephanie. If you'd like to re-watch this interview you can go to nancyzieman.com watch the show, the interview or 80-plus programs. This wraps up our first program of "Today's Crazy Quilting With Your Embroidery Machine" with Eileen Roche. See you next time, bye for now.