Story of my business
I started Jolly Jems back in 2014 a few months before i attended free 'Get to know your sewing machine' course and loved it, so swiftly bought myself a Janome Sewist 525s sewing machine, I gained confidence then started making and selling my items and selling them on my Facebook page and local fetes and craft fayres it was a great hobby!
Then...... someone introduced me to an embroidery machine, and i fell in love all over again, i liked the fact that you could personalise whatever you were making, so it was that little bit more special for the customer. I bought myself a Janome 300e embroidery machine, and started practicing, it opened up so many more possibilities and the sewing and embroidery machine complimented each other perfectly.
With my newly taught skills I took the plunge and opened my Etsy and Ebay shops, hoping to sell the odd thing, on a whim I added a mens personalised dressing gown to my shops not holding out much hope, and to my amazement they started selling like hot cakes, Christmas came and i couldn't keep up with demand so had to close the listing 4 weeks before Christmas so i could send all the gowns out in time.
The next year business carried on well and grew nicely so bought myself a Janome Memory Craft 400e a bigger, faster embroidery machine to be able to cope with size of the dressing gowns and the amount of orders was receiving, I also bought myself the Janome Jr digitising software package which gave me alot more options for personalising the gowns, such as logos, 100's of different fonts etc, things were looking good! My hobby turned into a part time job.
Next Instalment of how my business grew soon..........