Hand-Dyes For Sale: How I Turned My Hobby Into A Business by Melissa J Will author of Fabric Dyeing 101: Simple Instructions For Beautiful Fabrics Version 1.0 Copyright © 2011 Melissa J Will ISBN 978-1-4657-7514-6 All rights reserved Smashwords Edition, License Notes Thank you for downloading this free ebook Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author Thank you for your support Contents Introduction Restless Mommy She Dyes By Night Brand Epiphany To Touch Is To Love Online Shop Ready For Business: Is Anybody Out There? Making It Official Here Comes The Man What Do You Mean I Have To Be The Secretary? Wrap It Up, I'll Take It Show Time The Popular Ones The Numbers Don't Lie Help Needed Hello Guild: I'm Horrifically Shy! Teacher Teacher Wholesale Struggles Every Good Success Attracts A Few Trolls Fabric Switcharoo Now What? Hit The Pause Button Please Finale About The Author Introduction There are plenty of useful resources about creating your own small business and this is definitely not one of them What I want to share is my personal experience taking a hobby I loved and turning it into a small business and some of the struggles and successes along the way If you want that business how-to book, make sure you find one written for your particular area because if there's one thing I know about running a small business, as soon as you hang your shingle up, The Man comes looking for you, ready to double your service fees and tax them some more It's not easy to make a hobby profitable but I know I'm glad I gave it a try It all began when I was actually just trying to make a quilt I'd never made a quilt before but of course I decided to make one that required hand-dyeing fabrics to get the colours just right I'd never dyed fabric before either, but I was ready to try that too It was just not in my character to simply buy a kit with commercial fabrics and follow instructions I wanted my quilt to be unique Plus, I couldn't follow sewing patterns to save my life Fabric dyeing is a great hobby if you happen to love both fabrics and colour Every colour you can possibly dream of can be made with Procion MX fabric dyes While intending to simply dye a few fabrics for my quilt, I ended up staying up far too late at night while my family slept, experimenting for months on end, exploring every possible colour and value combination I could think of And they were all so impossibly beautiful I ended up with about 100 times more fabric than I needed for a quilt (or a dozen quilts) and, by necessity, decided to try selling the surplus so I could fund more supplies This book is purely my own experience as an entrepreneur with an art-based business What started out as a simple quest to sell some fabrics, gradually took on a whole other direction with unexpected possibilities While I never managed to get a full night's sleep throughout the process, I did have a rather wild ride along the way All in all it was a good experience for a homebody-introvert with an obsession for colour I hope you enjoy my story Back to top Restless Mommy When my youngest child was a baby, we made the decision that I would quit my full-time job and stay home with the kids I had always worked and supported myself since I was teenager and this was a huge step for me It meant relying on someone else for income (hello trust issues!) and it also meant giving up outside employment which I had always enjoyed I had always wanted to be a stay-at-home parent and this was my chance It would require some very careful financial management, but my husband was supportive so we gave it a whirl In Canada we have paid maternity (and paternity) leave In my day it was six months long (Today it's one year.) The full impact of leaving my job set in around my daughter's first birthday when the regular pay cheques had dried up and I stopped being invited to office parties with the old gang With past connections fading, it was time to create a new life You don't realize how much you rely on the companionship of your co-workers until they're no longer talking too loud on the phone in the next cubicle And truthfully, work was my main source of friendships because I am otherwise so disastrously shy that I avoid opportunities to meet people the way others step around live electrical wires While I missed the pseudo-security of a steady income, extended health benefits, and daily conversation with non-teething humans, it was exciting to be free to explore new opportunities I had never been well-suited (pun intended) to office life, having no interest in time-wasting rules and regulations, fashion, shoes, mini—fridge lunch thievery, or forced obligations Kindness and good manners, yes Productivity towards real goals, yes All that other stuff, no If you can a job in jeans and hoodie with a breastfeeding baby on board, I'm there! I loved a challenging, creative job but the confinement of office life was very hard on my soul I had long liberated myself from that portable torture devise known as pantyhose and never ever wore high heels Having tasted the freedom of never facing another office Christmas party or guilt-enforced charity drive, I knew I could never go back I'd always dabbled in self-employment Back in my university days, I earned good money drawing diagrams for a teacher of sign language I'd also taken on various odd jobs painting murals, sewing speciality items like slipcovers and curtains, designing posters, and so on I once sewed an entire superhero costume for someone's dog including a wire-lined cape that made it appear that the wee bulldog was indeed flying Today you can buy such critical essentials at pet superstores, but back then, it required some innovative sewing Frankly, I was amazed how much disposable income some people have and I was rather grateful to have the extra work Sewing the dog costume paid about 4x more per hour than my job as a unit clerk in an emergency and trauma unit It's kind of like professional sports salaries: our society really has its priorities straight! Of course you should earn more sewing dog costumes than working in a life-saving team! Who knows what heroic efforts that bulldog made? And for the record, bulldogs become incredibly wiggly when you're trying to measure their girth That sewing job wasn't all fun and games I come from a family of self-employed pioneers—writers, musicians, builders, you name it The thrill of never knowing if you'd earn enough to survive is engraved in my DNA I look back on my childhood quite thankful that I had no idea how close to the edge we lived as my father built a career as a freelance professional writer (It eventually paid very handsomely: when we were grown and gone, of course.) Without wishing to page Dr Freud, I should say that I also married a self-employed entrepreneur and all the uncertainty that comes with it After my first year of new motherhood, I looked up to notice the fact that I'd rarely left my house that entire time The routine had me feeling a little too housebound so I went on the wild side and attended a show featuring Amish style quilts I had never seen quilts like that in person and I was astonished by how beautiful the colours were These quilts were made from old, re purposed clothing, and the unexpected colour combinations transfixed me I came home declaring that I would make a quilt like that My mother taught me how to use her sewing machine when I was about eight years old but I avoided ever trying to learn how to use a sewing pattern because the instructions seemed profoundly intimidating (And they were: I swear Vogue patterns back then were written to inflict mental anguish on unsuspecting sewers.) Stubborn and very determined, I sewed everything I wanted (dolls clothes, bags, blouses, skirts) by simply thinking through what was needed, step by step I knit the same way: I envisioned the project, I thought about it, and knit Now an adult and still stubborn and determined, I was confident I could make this Amish quilt the same way And why not? It's not like the old Amish used commercial sewing patterns I didn't really have a plan except I knew I wanted beautiful solid colour fabrics that both complimented and aggravated each other, the same way the ones at the quilt show did I started buying bits and pieces where I found them but I was really underwhelmed by the selections available in fabric shops I also scoured thrift shops in hopes of finding suitable clothing to cut up, but that proved rather fruitless as well Solid colours in quilt-weight cottons and wools are hard to find today in a world of mass-produced synthetic prints A little frustrated but not daunted, I then decided I would simply dye my own fabrics Certainly this is how the old Amish got their colours? Keep in mind, this was before the internet was brimming with its current plethora of information (reliable and not so much), so I went to the local library and read up on natural dyeing techniques I soon realized that I was not keen on dealing with the harsh mordants required for some colours, and learned that the clear, bright, bold colours I was seeking could readily be achieved with synthetic Procion MX dyes for natural fibers I was familiar with them from tie-dyeing at summer camp I got the one book they had on the subject (since that time there are hundreds on the market including my recently— 2011— published eBook), and I mail ordered a fabric dye starter kit with fuchsia, turquoise, and bright yellow dye powders A local quilt shop owner sold me a bolt of bleached, white quilter's cotton, and I was raring to go What I never expected was how ridiculously beautiful the fabrics would be I had never seen this type of hand-dyed fabrics in person before and they really were drop-dead gorgeous if I say so myself My first rainbow set of colours was a success I had to more Next I tried other recipes that combined my basic dye powder colours plus a few new colours in various proportions to create earthy tones like mossy greens and browns, and various secondary colours like popsicle purple, rich ambers, and emerald greens Oh my! For someone who gets naturally giddy from delightful colours, I had found my new favourite thing to Back to top She Dyes By Night I started dyeing fabric every single night after the kids (and my husband!) were in bed There was a talk radio show I really liked from midnight until am and I would listen to that while I worked During the day, while I took care of my kids, I would keep a note pad nearby and jot down any new recipe ideas that came to mind What happens when you combine this with that? Or add a pinch of black to red and yellow? (Rich, pumpkin orange.) Or yellow on top of the other colours? (Vibrance.) Or switch to a different blue, or red, or yellow? And what if you put a little less dye in each pot? Do I really need to use this much dye powder? (No.) The possibilities were endless And the exciting part was, with these particular dyes (Procion MX), there are no bad colour combinations It's not like paints where you mix colours together and end up with mud These dyes are transparent so each colour participates in the final product What may look like mud with paints, looks like rich, multi-faceted tree bark with the fabric dyes And you know how the sky can have a zillion shades of blue from the horizon upward? That same effect is easy to achieve with these dyes The first technique I learned was for a mottled texture, often resembling frost on a window or salt crystal patterns With some experimentation, I discovered a really easy way to make solid coloured fabrics as well To organize my experiments and avoid accidentally trying to same thing twice, I developed a charting system that made it easy to record recipe details and, later, allowed me to easily duplicate any results I liked This chart system became an invaluable tool both for my own fabric dyeing and later when teaching others the secrets from the midnight kitchen dye adventures To gain confidence that the colours were permanent and would not run, I repeatedly conducted washfast or colourfast tests (dampen the dyed fabric and iron it until dry between two white pieces of cotton or wool fabric—if there is dye on the whites, it's not properly rinsed) Everything was fine I knew I could use the fabrics in a quilt and not have to worry about that Not that I was ready to sew with the fabrics: there was still so much experimenting to be done I would buy one or two 15-yard bolts at a time and dye sets of ⅛ and ¼ yard pieces After a few weeks and about 200 yards of dyeing, my bulk purchases started to get the shop owner's attention and she asked to see my hand-dyes When I brought in a suitcase full of samples, brimming with dozens of colours and values, she was smitten Without a moment's hesitation she said, “You should sell those They're gorgeous.” And then, without missing a beat, she added, “Can we barter? Your hand-dyes for my dye fabric?” I was flattered but hesitant My gut instinct said, Don't barter with this woman! But unfortunately I let myself be overwhelmed by her forcefulness Later you'll see why I refer to this woman as Mrs R Flag While I'm not big on The Woo, I have faith in my own hunches and intuition (a.k.a spidey sense) yet I struggle to listen to it sometimes in new and intimidating situations The way I see it, my brain picks up way more information and signals about people and experiences than I consciously process My spidey sense is the intermediary saying, “You may not know what's wrong here but at least listen to the warnings, Missy.” In business, as in life, those inner nudges are your inner security team Around the same time Mrs R Flag expressed an interest in the hand-dyes, my husband started to notice the stacks (and stacks and stacks) of hand-dyes laid out for all to admire around my work table in the living room He hinted that, while he didn't really know anything about sewing or quilting, he suspected I had a lot more fabric there than I needed for a single Amish quilt Very perceptive, that husband of mine is Knowing that I wasn't anywhere near done with experimenting with the dye possibilities, I decided I would indeed try selling some of the fabrics since we did not exactly have a budget for fabrics and dyes in these volumes With encouragement from a few others, I was totally charged up with the idea of starting my own small business Back to top Brand Epiphany As a homebody and introvert, I decided I was best suited to opening an online mail order business That way I could work when it suited me, and not have to face my anxieties about meeting people or, heaven forbid, chatting with strangers Ha! Wrong! As it turned out, I ended up meeting more people than I probably would have if I'd had a bricks and mortar shop But that's getting ahead of the story The biggest obstacle facing any project, whether it's creating a business or writing a book or designing something, is knowing your product and creating a brand I felt very lucky with my hand-dye shop: the basic theme just came to me I had long been obsessed with the (now) extremely clichéd, poorly reproduced, and overused paintings of Claude Monet Yes, I was a water lily fanatic I admit it When my husband and I were courting, he game me a gorgeous poster of a lesser known water lily painting and I treasured it both because it was an unexpected gift and it demonstrated that he understood what I loved (besides him) Ahhhhh! That was sweet In French, the name Claude rhymes with toad You pronounce it Clode I was attracted to Monet's paintings because of the colours and textures My hand-dyed business would be my Ode to Claude I hope you just said it the rhyming way It's sounds a little odd otherwise Ode to Claude: Monet-inspired hand-dyed cotton fabric Ta-da! Once you have a theme to work with, the rest just flows I knew I needed a way to package the fabrics in sets and this gave me all the inspiration I needed I selected about a dozen or so favourite Monet paintings and used each one as a guide to creating a fabric set Lighthouse at the Hospice Sailboats Water lilies Path in the Forest Jar of Peaches Camille on the Beach Each set contained about 6-8 different fabric colours that could all be found in the painting At the risk of tooting my own horn, I felt like I had stumbled upon a rather obvious but useful tool for both selling the fabrics and creating original quilts: take your inspiration from colour sets you know already work in other works of art Another good aspect to this approach of creating painting sets was that I didn't have to be exact each time Each of Monet's paintings contain a whole lot of colours: so I could vary which ones I put in the set depending on what stock I had on hand and what I was experimenting with The Monet theme also lent itself to some good fun using Monet as my spokesperson to announce sales and whatnot in the business newsletter Fun! I longed for a life-size cutout of him to have at craft shows but I never did manage to get one My husband, while known for his brains and beauty, also happens to be a very good graphic designer and, knew computer code He designed a gorgeous logo for my business and showed me how to write HTML code for an online shop This was before online shopping carts were affordable or reliable (and long before Etsy brought art out of the el-cheapo pricing of eBay), so I had to create a system that customers felt confident using but wouldn't require personal phone calls to secure credit card information (PayPal was not yet around either.) Back to top To Touch Is To Love Quilting, like knitting, is a tactile activity Knitters need to feel the yarn to know if they want to work with it Quilters want to touch the fabric, see designs or patterns, and confirm with their own eyes that the colours are indeed pleasing To accommodate this, I created a swatch card of all of my standard colours (real fabric swatches attached to card stock with a glue stick) that could be mail ordered I charged $10 but that money could be applied toward the customer's first order This ended up being a wise decision: there were some weeks where swatch card orders accounted for over half my sales revenue (I began to suspect that there's a secret swatch card hoarding cult out there.) My initial error was to not indicate an expiry date on the first cards I sold Eventually I realized that deadlines create business and from then on all swatch cards issued had a 90-day expiry date reinforced with two email reminders Many more swatch cards translated into fabric sales this way To keep costs down, I first uploaded my site piggybacking on my husband's domain While it wasn't the most professional thing to do, I really didn't want to fork over the money for hosting until I knew the business would actually generate some revenue After about a year or so, my husband surprised me with the purchase of my own domain It was very romantic Today it's not nearly as costly to so, but in those days, it was foreplay I assure you The technology of the day presented other obstacles I could not manage to photograph the fabric in a way that presented the colours fairly accurately on the computer screen, and of course, colours look different on different screens Someone suggested scanning the fabrics and it worked fairly well It was slow and tedious but it was better than nothing Still, I was at the peril of variations in monitors and, worse, other people's perceptions Science has proven that no two people see colour the same way But the only thing that mattered for me was that most people would like what they saw Bandwidth was also still a big issue so I had to keep my images small for mercy of those on dial-up (like I was) Back to top The Numbers Don't Lie Thorough business bookkeeping provides the information you need to analyze the true costs of doing business In the case of fabric dyeing, besides the materials (fabric, dye powders, soda ash, containers ), there's a big demand on work space plus water and use of a washing machine and dryer Because I did all the work within our home, I had to review our utility bills for the year before I started dyeing fabric, and then the first year of fabric dyeing to get some sense of how much our household expenses had increased because of it I wanted a business that covered all costs (including wear and tear) plus a profit, paid me a living wage (when I was actually working well beyond full-time hours), and was a kind to earth as possible A lot of people try to romanticize having an art-based business, as if you get to have your cake and eat it too Believe me, I would have tried if the cake wasn't buried somewhere in the bins and buckets lining the rooms of our house It can be fun but wow, it's a lot of mess and work as well And thinking This duck's feet were paddling very fast under that smooth, blue water Back to top Help Needed There were times when I really wanted to hire a studio assistant to help with the mailings, restocking supplies, bookkeeping, ironing and bundling fabric sets, and so on, but, that would mean having this person in our home I intentionally did not advertise or mention I wanted help because I knew several of the people I had met through the business would probably be interested but none of them seemed like a good fit I knew it would be too invasive for my family in our tiny home What I a was really needing was a very intuitive and efficient robot who would also make our meals and give me a good laugh when I needed it most Excited by my business growth, some people offered to learn how to dye the fabrics for me, just to help out While that was very kind, it reminded me of when you have a new baby and everyone offers to come over and hold the new baby when what you really need is for them to clean your bathrooms and the laundry I was running a art business based on the unique, quirky characteristics that you wouldn't get by buying something mass produced overseas And since hand-dyes are like finger prints and snowflakes: no two people get the same results, I did not want to sell a product I hadn't made myself The point was that the Ode to Claude brand was my very own hand-dyed creations and what I really needed was someone to take on the more mundane stuff, preferably in the middle of the night Like that happy robot I continued to keep very late hours and all of the work myself, sensing that one day I would have to make some big decisions about expanding into a bigger space and getting help Back to top Hello Guild: I'm Horrifically Shy! After a few months of business, my local quilt guild hosted an evening where members could come showcase their quilt-related businesses at the monthly meeting for an audience of 300+ people I'm ridiculously shy and loathe public speaking but forced myself to give a little presentation I'm quite certain my little speech was a rather incoherent mess (it's hard to speak in a loud, clear voice while blacking out to the sound of your heart racing in your ear) but I did get a lot of people coming over to my table later to view the fabrics They were probably propelled over by sheer pity The two most common questions were, “Would you be able to dye my drapes to match my carpet?” (No.) And, “Do you teach fabric dyeing?” (Maybe!) I had anticipated the teaching question because people always asked about the how-to's of fabric dyeing at my booths at craft shows It seemed to be a mixture of interest and small talk I put out a sign-up sheet for a possible workshop on my guild table and by the end of the evening I had over 50 contacts to follow up with Back to top Teacher Teacher Long story short, teaching fabric dyeing is far more lucrative than making and selling hand-dyes I came up with a system for teaching where the workshop participants would get hands-on experience with all the critical steps in the process, go home with a lovely bundle of their own hand-dyes, but still only have to be there a few hours (fabric dyeing involves a lot of waiting time) To help them further, I provided each of them with a manual I had written so they wouldn't have to take a lot of notes at the workshop but instead could enjoy playing with colour and getting to know one another (or not, if they are socially inept like me) Remember how I said I encountered a lot of sneaky people? Business people who were secretive with information and not at all helpful? Or happy to take from me but never reciprocate in return? My hunch with teaching fabric dyeing was that I would be rewarded ten fold if I openly shared my so-called tips and tricks and hard-earned fabric dyeing lessons with my students I declared myself an open book I also knew that many quilters (and knitters) are extraordinarily intelligent people If I shared what I knew with them, certainly I would learn a lot in return If some of them loved the dyeing so much that they wanted to try selling their own fabrics? No problem I was happy to share my experiences in case I could help them avoid some of the pitfalls I had faced along the way It may be small world sometimes but it's also a big planet with a lot of people and there's room for all of us to thrive Or that's my theory and I'm sticking with it One woman told me she had been to a surface design workshop where they had to sign a confidentiality agreement in order to participate Even if it could hurt my business, which I doubt it ever would, I never wanted to be like that I also heard through the grapevine that Mrs Flag's shop was struggling partly because her demanding business tactics were offensive to so many customers Ironically the more I taught, the more they bought! Fabric, that is My students who continued dyeing fabric on their own after the workshops, often came back to me buy more of my handdyes and see if I would be the middle person supplying them with bolts of dye fabrics and powders I would always tell them my sources and provide contact information, but many of them were more comfortable going through me How's that for accidental reverse psychology? I made it clear that I would have to charge a flat fee to justify my time ordering and distributing the wholesale fabric, but that was fine with them (I never could get more than a 10% discount on dye powders because that's a heavily protected market with few vendors and they are apparently very keen to protect their shares.) Back to top Wholesale My presentation at the quilt guild prompted me not only to start teaching fabric dyeing but to wholesale my fabrics as well A few of the other guild members who presented that night were fabric shop owners and several of them expressed an interest in having my fabrics in their shops Selling the fabrics in a shop meant there was no pressure to match a swatch card sample or image on a screen I was able to offer a reasonable wholesale price because I could simply create a variety of bundles with whatever odds and ends I had on hand, display them nicely and wait for their customers to snatch them up I went to visit each of the owners at their shops and all of them purchased significant volumes of fabrics to get started When supplies were running out, they would contact me to come replenish the display From there I went on to contact other quilt shop owners throughout the province There were a few who were such incredibly bitter people that, even though they did want the fabrics in their shops, I could not bring myself to deal with them One aspect of running your own business is, for better and worse, you get to be the boss And this boss did not want constant dealings with human crab apples So, even though I first approached them, I would eventually decline the sale and deal with the inevitable stream of expletives Whatever Good-bye! It's amazing how many business owners really seem to hate their businesses as well as their customers Me? I'd rather stay on the happy side of life The long-distance shops would receive their fabrics by mail I had very good relationships with all of them and they could phone me at any time to place more orders or relay customer questions (Am I the only one who has been using personal computers since the 1980's? It's amazing how many shop owners didn't get online and have email until just recently I am certain email was invented by a phone-phobic person like me.) Around this time, good old Mrs Flag came into her own business troubles and as a result, I felt the wrath Back to top Struggles As you will recall, like a bumbling fool, I had initially negotiated with Mrs Flag to barter my hand-dyes for dyeing fabric She would supply me with bolts of white quilter's cotton and I would supply her with hand-dyes to sell in her shop From my bookkeeping analysis, I had a pretty clear idea of the actual total cost of my fabrics (including overhead and paying myself for my work) Unfortunately, Mrs Flag, while knowing what it cost her to purchase dye fabric for me, was not willing to share that information with me (which told me she must have been getting an amazing deal) How you negotiate when you don't know what the other guy's costs are, and, more to the point, you don't trust him/her? This made it rather difficult to fairly exchange goods After seeing how well my fabrics sold in her shop, she eventually agreed to pay me cash instead (at my wholesale rate), which, I thought, resolved the problem I liked having the fabrics at her store because I could refer customers there when they wanted to come to my house to shop in person And I was sure it would benefit Mrs Flag to bring more people into her store Fast forward and Mrs Flag's quilt shop was really struggling She had expanded way beyond her means using a pie in the sky business plan to secure a big bank loan I went in the shop to replenish stock and collect my current payment and she sheepishly acknowledged that she couldn't afford to or didn't want to pay me in cash, despite our deal Instead, she offered, with far too much enthusiasm, that I could 'have' the same amount in goods from her store Now think about it She buys her wares at wholesale rates with at least a 50% markup for retail She had sold over $400 of my fabrics, retailing over $800 So she wanted me to take $400 in goods that cost her $200 Forgetaboutit! Mrs Red Flag was making me see red I loathed these sorts of difficulties Mainly because my hunch was that she really could afford to pay me, but she just didn't want to if she could get away with doing something else We eventually sorted it out but my fabrics no longer appeared in her store I later heard from one of my customers, Diane, that she, Diane, went into that shop specifically to buy more hand-dyes (because that's where she first encountered them) and, when she discovered the display was gone, she asked Mrs Flag where she could get some more Mrs Flag played dumb and told Diane she just couldn't remember the source and suspected I'd gone out of business Nice, eh? You can see why thicker skinned business people feel they have to play really rough sometimes My one and only mishap with dyes running happened with another wholesale order I had been supplying this other shop with fabrics for about half a year and I got a call one day from the owner saying a customer had a problem with my fabrics She said it was a fuchsia piece and when she went to test it for wash-fastness, it ran A lot This is just about the worst news you can get as a hand-dye seller I prided myself on the fact that I produced absolutely washfast fabrics that anyone would confidentially sew right into a quilt without pretesting or worrying Had this customer sewn with the fabric and then washed the quilt, the quilt could have been ruined I wanted to die No pun intended Well, not really, but this was bad One slip up like this and customers lose faith They get scared off, they tell their friends all about it, and before you know it, we're back to the 1934 wives' tales about fabric dyes It's like vegetarians always being asked, “But where you get your protein?” It's a cliché and irrelevant question because all sorts of foods contain more than ample protein without a person every consuming an animal product With fabric dyes, it's “Do the dyes run?” Well they shouldn't but these ones did I looked through my dyeing notes for that particular order and immediately knew what the problem was It was a particularly hairy time and I had rushed the job I chose meeting a selfimposed deadline (liking to wow the shops with my speedy service) over taking an extra day and doing it right It was the one and only time I did that and I knew at the time I was pushing my luck Never overrule your spidey sense! Haste makes waste By my good fortune, the shop keeper was extremely gracious about the whole thing and didn't seem to mind at all Meanwhile I was beating myself up over it I couriered a replacement set of fabrics to the store with a few extra bling pieces and as far as the owner and customer were concerned, it was a happy resolution She continued to order my fabrics, and I continued to live on edge, fearing that some other bigger mishap might derail the business I had worked so hard to build Who me, paranoid? You can see why I'm not running a major corporation (besides the fact that I'm not a fan of The Man and fear the telephone and public speaking.) Back to top Every Good Success Attracts A Few Trolls Turns out, I didn't derail anything and business continued to chug along But lots more trolls came out of the woodwork to try and rattle my cage Here's an example: Around this time, more hand-dyed fabric shops starting popping up online and several of the businesses were located within an hour or two of my home I started noticing some long visits to my online store as indicated by my sitemeter One particular IP address would visit over and over again, checking every single page At the same time, from the same IP address, I started getting general enquiries by email asking about fabric dyeing, suppliers, and sales volumes These were just from innocent, curious fans, you understand Other information confirmed that two of the competing shops were essentially trying to get all my business information without ever simply coming forth and asking me directly People just assume you won't cooperate so they start trying to shimmy the lock without ever testing to see if the door is actually already open While I probably would have shared resource information, I can't say it ever thrills me when the other party refuses to reciprocate or be open with their intentions Again, think about it It's a big, freaking planet and there really is room on it for lots of us to have similar businesses In fact, why not promote one another? If a customer wants something I don't have, I will gladly direct them to your shop in case you It's win win The customer remembers the helpfulness and probably tells other people about it, plus, they get what they wanted If your fabrics are better than mine, that's my cue to step up my game (A big difficulty is competing with other vendors who don't price their goods to cover their true costs But that's what happens when hobbies are subsidized by hardworking spouses.) The spying trolls tried all sorts of crazy things, and eventually I met one of them head on at a craft show I had the opportunity to reveal that I knew some of the spy emails were from her (again by matching up IP addresses on various emails and site visits) I admit it was fun to see the woman sputter and writhe, trying to cover up her silly and lame attempts to garnish my 'secrets' Back to top Fabric Switcharoo While I never did locate the wholesale supplier of my favourite first quilter's cotton, I did continue hunting for other options throughout Canada to avoid dealing with Red Flag Betty After testing some samples, I bought 1000 yards of a slightly thicker mercerized cotton that felt lovely and sewed beautifully The arrival of this new fabric coincided with a huge order for many pieces of Forest Floor colours so I went ahead and dyed a whole bunch of batches Two problems occurred First, because the fabric was slightly thicker, the mottles were not nearly as crystal-like as they appeared on the old fabric Ack! Before completing the order, I had to courier a sample to the customer (who was buying on behalf of a whole group of people) and see if she'd even want the fabric at all Fortunately, while it was very different looking, she still wanted the whole lot I finished the order and shipped it out in several big boxes The next problem was, the fabric arrived damp! I had organized everything into sets, all nicely ironed and folded into beautiful bundles tied with ribbon (that particular gold ribbon that was my signature), and I enclosed everything in large plastic bags as instructed by the courier service who couldn't ensure that the boxes wouldn't get wet along the way Well, the boxes didn't get wet, but that thicker fabric apparently had some moisture retention after ironing and it all sweated out during its journey Oy! I conducted a few tests with extra pieces and found, yes indeedy, that fabric was thick enough that it retained a lot more moisture from the rinse and ironing than the old fabric ever did There's no real harm in the dampness but it does kind of diminish the thrill of opening the package I apologized to the customer for the dampness and asked what I could to make it up to her This was a tactic I had learned as a customer service rep (truly the complaints person) at a former job Never tell the customer what you're going to to make things better but instead let the customer tell you what would make it better for him or her People are pretty much always very reasonable if you take this tact and they tend to find solutions that are far less expensive than ones you, the vendor, might think of In this case she really just wanted to vent a little and let me know what had happened I listened, apologized, and thanked her for letting me know It's really far worse when you have a problem with your business that everyone knows about except you From then on, those new fabrics were left to breathe and dry after ironing and and sent a few days later No more haste and waste The other new problem was, I now had hundreds of yards of new fabric that didn't get good mottles from the dyes Those mottles were my signature I realized my test samples were too small to really give me the information I really needed to make that major purchasing decision Double oy! But, down but not out, this segued into a whole new line of fabrics Soft Solids were my version of making lemonade from lemons I started using this new fabric for solid colours in larger sized pieces that could be used as quilt backs This became a great option for people who wanted a custom dyed piece to match an existing quilt top Good recovery! I stepped away from my relationship with Betty Many Red Flags and this meant that when my original dye fabric from her ran out, I had to find something else to work with that would get great mottles I ended up finding some fairly acceptable substitutes, but nothing again ever dyed as brilliantly as that original fabric Wherever the heck it was from! Back to top Now What? The pressure and repetitiveness of being the designer, manufacturer, marketer, bookkeeper, shipper, and receiver, and, apparently, door greeter, started to weigh on me I'm good at ideas and developing them, but repetition and I don't partner so well together I began to think how nice it would be to simply be the manufacturer or the distributor Not both Mama was getting tired And my shoulder would constantly ache from so much ironing Plus, monotony is remarkably monotonous In my first full-time job as a conference coordinator, I learned the ropes, grasped how boring a lot of the admin work was (processing conference registrations) and devised my way out of it by tweaking the computer system (those were the days of DOS and databases) and automating our jobs into much more enjoyable routines With a little bit of typing (comparatively speaking), the computer spewed the rest out for us The same thing happened in subsequent jobs If anything was boring or repetitive, I did whatever I could to innovate a way out of it My restless soul just cannot tolerate unending repetitive work It has to lead to something new or change, or I'm out of there The fabric dyeing became very repetitive I missed sleep And the daily trips to the post office were a grind Wait in line Fill out silly customs forms Find out how often what they quote and what you pay always seem to differ for the worse I even tried selling bags of fabrics un-ironed at a lower price to relieve myself of that duty! Someone suggested I get an electric mangle to speed up the ironing and I didn't even know what one was I started searching the local buy and sell (there was no online Kijiji yet) and I soon bought my first mangle It was a 1950's stand up model with a roller wide enough to iron half yard pieces of fabric What a dream! This one $10 purchase saved me hours of ironing time each day That was a great find (You can see the table top one I also purchased for $10 in action at youtube.com/user/fabricdyeing101.) Teaching fabric dyeing continued to generate good income for the work involved I often set up the workshops in my mother's basement She had a ping pong table that was perfect for a group of ten students More and more people wanted to learn dyeing, expand into other surface design techniques, and enjoy the companionship of other like-minded artists Crazy extroverts! I was craving a lot more order in my home, more time with family without feeling so distracted, and a clear path from the living room to the kitchen without climbing over fabric bins I felt a long way away from that person who just wanted to make a beautiful Amish-style quilt Customers continued to drop by the house, uninvited and unannounced, and it became clear that if I was going to continue, I would need a whole new set up There was no question that the demand was there: customers wanted my fabrics, dyes, dye fabrics and other supplies, and a learning space where they could drop by and get instruction and guidance as needed while they worked on various projects Imagine how fun it would be to run this studio stocked with supplies, with other artists who could share their talents as well An art co-op of sorts, perhaps To justify my time away from family and try to make myself feel better, I increased my fabric prices significantly to pay myself a better wage At the time, a living wage was estimated to be around $16 per hour I paid myself about $20 In the real world, that's no big whoop, but for a small art business, it's okay Business continued to chug along, and despite my raise, I knew I still wasn't happy because really, sore shoulders and low wages aren't the end of the world when you love what you're doing My passion was fading and the next logical goal seemed hard to reach The initial thrill of the catch had passed But I wasn't ready to give up and I loved the idea of creating some sort of art co-op where members would pay to play, and we started to look at spaces My mother was interested in sharing a property with us so we focused on rural properties with several out buildings We could each have a house and use an additional building as the studio The commute would be short and the supplies would be removed from my home Imagine Another long story short, it did not work out, though we came very close with one property It was high up on a cliff overlooking a large river and it would have been rather idyllic for many reasons, but the owner was stubborn about the price, which we knew was too high over market value Eventually he settled for our original offer price with another couple, long after we had given up To keep fresh content on my website, I started posting a weekly newsletter about fabric dyeing and my life as a mom, and that became my first blog Blogger was totally frustrating and unreliable in those days, but I kept at it because I enjoyed the reader support It was also a good meeting place to answer questions about my fabrics and fabric dyeing I eventually posted my entire teaching manual online to provide beginners around the world with everything they needed to know to get started as well Today that information is a book By me! Back to top Hit The Pause Button Please At some point there was a break between teaching commitments and craft shows and I put the business on hiatus I was so done with those trips to the post office I put a notice on my site and informed everyone who enquired that I was taking a break until further notice It was a tremendous relief to step away, start getting my house in order, some sewing, pay more attention to my garden, and actually sleep at night Temptation soon followed when a friend with a hand-marbled fabric business approached me and asked if I would like to buy her business from her She too was tired of the grind and wanted to pass it along to a kindred spirit who would take good care of it I was touched by her offer but had to confess that I was also burned out I passed on the offer and continued to rebuild my life I would miss the income and adventure but not the repetitive routine After about a year and half, I took the big bold step and shut the whole thing down I continued to offer free information online (generating income from the ads and donation button on the site), but other than that, it was lights out on Ode to Claude My heart would ache a little when invitations to good craft shows would come along or favourite customers would come seeking something special, but other than that, I knew I made the right choice If there had been enough profit to employ others to help ease the burden, and if we had found the right studio at the right price, who knows how it would have unfolded But we didn't and I did walk away and other good things filled its place in my life I'm envious now when I see how much easier it is to sell things online There's Etsy and PayPal and secure shopping carts and much lower hosting fees But there's also way more competition And lots and lots of hand-dye sellers, plus some pretty good commercially printed imitations from overseas It's so much easier now to hang up your shingle and give it a whirl So perhaps I did try it at the right time I was able to sell pretty much every fabric I created and I must have been doing something right to attract those spies If I ever try something like that again, I will have the confidence to set boundaries right from the start, knowing, if I can't make it work without completely exhausting myself, I'm not really making it at all Back to top Finale I hope you enjoyed this story of my hand-dyed fabric business While my experience was a bit extreme, I promise you, hand-dyeing fabric is truly an enjoyable hobby and/or business for many who give it a try If you are interested in making your own hand-dyes (it's much less expensive than buying them), have a look at my ebook at my blog, fabricdyeing101: Fabric Dyeing 101: Simple Instructions For Beautiful Fabrics For Those Who Wish To Be Both Frugal and Gentle On The Earth by Melissa J Will Contents include: Specific step-by-step instructions with tips and tricks for getting best results A walk-through of a dye recipe to guide you through your first dye session Health and safety considerations A complete supply list and suggestions for obtaining supplies Fabric selection advice Tips for maximizing supplies and minimizing waste How to make mottled and solid fabrics How to ensure your fabrics are washfast How to design your own fabric colour sets How to convert the recipes for different fabric sizes Recipes for rainbows, two colour blends, three colour blends, gradations, deluxe blends, skin tones, and neutrals (mosses, browns, forest colours) Surface design instructions for fabric/sky painting and easy batiks My story: how a paisley pantsuit launched my colour obsession Back to top About The Author Melissa J Will is a colour-obsessed writer, artist, and organic gardener living in Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada You can find her at fabricdyeing101.blogspot.com and empressofdirt.blogspot.com Back to top ... transaction, which again was not so straightforward because I was doing business online, by mail, and in-person Mrs Flag told me about an national craft business organization I could join for $75 a. .. on it goes Local charities and fundraisers start knocking on the door for prizes and donations, as if, by becoming a business, there is instant and extra wealth available I will happily my part... very careful financial management, but my husband was supportive so we gave it a whirl In Canada we have paid maternity (and paternity) leave In my day it was six months long (Today it''s one year.)