Don’t you love that feeling when plans start to come to fruition? When things start falling into place and you say to yourself “this just might work!”. I love it…. And I am having just that feeling as I write to you today.
One part of Beautiful Stitches is teaching children to sew. I started with a small group of my daughter’s friends nearly two years ago. We met once a fortnight after school. The children were enthusiastic and I loved being able to share my passion for all things hand-made, and especially hand-sewn, with them. Pretty soon a second group had started and they were having just as much fun.
Last year, I decided to take the whole thing onto a more businesslike footing. I hired a venue and decided to run the classes once a month on a Sunday afternoon. This gave me longer than an after school class to give the children more time to finish off a project. And once a month worked really well. The children were always eager and interested when they came to class and I was always excited to meet up with them again and start work on a new project.

One of my favourite classes from last year – stitching simple outfits for wood and wire dolls. A groovy guy with a mohawk, Rapunzel, and a trendy girl on the town ๐
We took a nice long break over the long, hot, Perth summer – in my experience small hot hands and sewing are not good friends. But with the arrival of cooler weather it is time to start up again. I have a new venue and am doubling the number of classes I run – from one to two. OK, so it doesn’t sound like a big thing but it is another baby step in gradually expanding my business. I have recently started following a very cool blog by Coral called Creative Women’s Business. In a post from January this year, Coral talks about taking one step at a time – even micro-steps inch you a bit closer to your goal.
And hence my great excitement. My first class is fully booked, mostly with students returning from last year. That in itself is an achievement – I am so happy that they are all keen to continue. But even better, I am taking bookings for my second class from brand new students. I received a phone call from an interested parent today and I haven’t even started advertising yet! How cool is that? I confess that I got off the phone from her and did a little dance of excitement because I just got that tingling feeling that all the painstaking plans and niggles of the last few weeks were starting to bear fruit.
So, if you know of a child in Perth who might enjoy joining a sewing class with me, then please share this post so they can contact me for more information. I am just so excited that the children’s classes are underway for a third year!