From The Conference Room to The Sewing Room
After spending 30+ years in corporate America, I joined the ranks of early retired baby boomers in January of 2015. For the first few months, I kept busy with DIY home improvement projects and crafting. However, about six months into retirement, I found myself longing for meaningful work in order to feel fulfilled and relevant. Besides, my husband threatened to leave me if I didn't stop trying to rebuild our house.
Since I have been an accomplished seamstress since my early teens, I thought that sewing might be just the right hobby to fill my days. I bought myself a new Brother sewing and embroidery machine with the goal of making historic period garments for re-enactments. I made a pair of bloomers and a petticoat and was ready to embark on the arduous task of making a 19th century silk ball gown. As fate would have it, I never got around to making that garment. One Spring afternoon while shopping in a local fabric store, I ran into a former peer who had taken up machine embroidery as a hobby. After looking at some of her beautiful creations, I decided that embroidery would be a nice complement to my hand-made garments and various household textiles. I spent the next 6 months taking a variety of online and in-person classes to learn the art of embroidery and monogramming. After rediscovering the joy of sewing and acquiring new embroidery skills, I decided to invest some of my retirement savings into hardware, software, and related sewing and embroidery supplies.
Through word of mouth, referrals, and several large craft shows, my hobby quickly morphed into a full-time monogramming and sewing business. I converted an entire wing of my home into a very large sewing and crafting studio. I also invested in two state of the art multi-needle embroidery machines, a serger, and three more sewing machines. I also hired an attorney and a CPA to setup my business: Bewitchin Stitchin LLC dba Bewitchin Stitchin RVA.
Because of business background, I realized that online and social media business components would be essential to making Bewitchin Stitchin RVA successful. After extensive research, I decided that Etsy was a good fit for marketing and selling my items and meeting my growth objectives. Since officially launching Bewitchin Stitchin RVA with Etsy in late 2016, I have been blessed with a growing base of wonderful customers. As of this posting I have created and monogrammed 5,000 items for my treasured customers.
Running a business is a time-consuming 7 day a week venture and from time to time I do find myself in need of some R&R. Frequently, my husband Bill, a retired Navy Officer, and our Border Collie, Fergus, travel to our vacation home to enjoy time with family, the warm SC sunshine, bicycling, the sounds of the sea, frolicking dolphins, pelicans and seagulls. My children’s seersucker clothing line was inspired by life in the Palmetto State.
I hope that you like my creations and will visit my shoppe frequently as I am always adding new items. As always, Customer Service, Honesty, and Quality are my guiding principles. If you are ever unhappy with a purchase, please let me know and I will do my best to remediate the problem. I realize you have a wide variety of stores to select from on Etsy. My promise to you is that I will always do my best to offer high quality items at a reasonable price.
Since my main business focus is children, product safety will always be front and center with me. You can rest assured in the knowledge that I am CPSIA and FTC compliant, as are my distributors of embroidery blanks that I use for selected stock items in my shoppe.
Again, thank you for visiting. Let’s create something beautiful and unique together!
Since I have been an accomplished seamstress since my early teens, I thought that sewing might be just the right hobby to fill my days. I bought myself a new Brother sewing and embroidery machine with the goal of making historic period garments for re-enactments. I made a pair of bloomers and a petticoat and was ready to embark on the arduous task of making a 19th century silk ball gown. As fate would have it, I never got around to making that garment. One Spring afternoon while shopping in a local fabric store, I ran into a former peer who had taken up machine embroidery as a hobby. After looking at some of her beautiful creations, I decided that embroidery would be a nice complement to my hand-made garments and various household textiles. I spent the next 6 months taking a variety of online and in-person classes to learn the art of embroidery and monogramming. After rediscovering the joy of sewing and acquiring new embroidery skills, I decided to invest some of my retirement savings into hardware, software, and related sewing and embroidery supplies.
Through word of mouth, referrals, and several large craft shows, my hobby quickly morphed into a full-time monogramming and sewing business. I converted an entire wing of my home into a very large sewing and crafting studio. I also invested in two state of the art multi-needle embroidery machines, a serger, and three more sewing machines. I also hired an attorney and a CPA to setup my business: Bewitchin Stitchin LLC dba Bewitchin Stitchin RVA.
Because of business background, I realized that online and social media business components would be essential to making Bewitchin Stitchin RVA successful. After extensive research, I decided that Etsy was a good fit for marketing and selling my items and meeting my growth objectives. Since officially launching Bewitchin Stitchin RVA with Etsy in late 2016, I have been blessed with a growing base of wonderful customers. As of this posting I have created and monogrammed 5,000 items for my treasured customers.
Running a business is a time-consuming 7 day a week venture and from time to time I do find myself in need of some R&R. Frequently, my husband Bill, a retired Navy Officer, and our Border Collie, Fergus, travel to our vacation home to enjoy time with family, the warm SC sunshine, bicycling, the sounds of the sea, frolicking dolphins, pelicans and seagulls. My children’s seersucker clothing line was inspired by life in the Palmetto State.
I hope that you like my creations and will visit my shoppe frequently as I am always adding new items. As always, Customer Service, Honesty, and Quality are my guiding principles. If you are ever unhappy with a purchase, please let me know and I will do my best to remediate the problem. I realize you have a wide variety of stores to select from on Etsy. My promise to you is that I will always do my best to offer high quality items at a reasonable price.
Since my main business focus is children, product safety will always be front and center with me. You can rest assured in the knowledge that I am CPSIA and FTC compliant, as are my distributors of embroidery blanks that I use for selected stock items in my shoppe.
Again, thank you for visiting. Let’s create something beautiful and unique together!