Starting Your Own Embroidery Business at Home

As more and more people become disenchanted with working for disloyal American companies, many are finding themselves going out and starting their own small home-based businesses. This is great for the U.S. economy, and it is also wonderful if you are one of the people wanting to start your own business! There is no better time than starting your own business than right now.

One of the most popular new businesses is custom embroidery services. Thanks to the technology of today, doing custom embroidery no longer requires very expensive machinery and can be done with simply a decent personal computer and a sewing machine with embroidery capability. Your customer base for your designs is literally limited only by your own imagination and marketing ability. Everyone from dog owners to crafters are interested in having items which reflect their interests and individuality.

Machine embroidery can be done on most fabrics and is the best way to customize your clothing and decorative items. You can purchase designs which are already made and you can also design your own through the latest in digitizing software. Starting your own custom embroidery business is easy if you follow a few standard small business guidelines. Here are just a few of them to consider:

The Business Plan

No matter what business you decide to start, you 100% have to have a solid business plan. There is no way possible to have a successful business venture without one. The best way to develop your business plan is to think about all of the variables which go into your unique business, and what your ultimate short-term and long-term goals are for the business. With all of this information, you can sit down and formulate a business plan without it taking you a lot of valuable time.

Licensing and Regulations

Depending on the city, county, and possibly state you live in, you may have to get a business license to have a legal home-based embroidery business. The way to determine what the local rules and regulations are is to call up your local city and county government offices and ask them what you need to do. If you live in a state with sales tax, you should call up your state Controller’s Office and ask about obtaining a seller’s permit. You will most likely find that most government offices are supportive and helpful in getting you situated in a place where your business is legal.

Financial Records

The best thing you can do for yourself is to keep good business records from day one of your business. Start with the fees to get a business license, and start recording every single business expense that you have. By doing this as you go you will save both yourself and your tax preparer a ton of headaches come tax time.

Setting Your Prices

The number one mistake many home-based sewing businesses make is to charge too little for their services. You need to make a living, and you need to be pricing your items and services accordingly. Whatever you do, do not sell yourself short! Ask a going rate for your items and services and expect that people will pay you what your time and product is worth. This allows you to work smarter and not harder!

Marketing

Marketing is simply getting the word out and letting others know your business exists. You can market online, through a press release sent to your local newspaper, flyers, brochures, craft fair booths, etc… Anywhere you come into contact with potential customers you can market your items and services. You can even do simple things like always carry business cards, available these days very inexpensively online, and hand them out to everyone you meet as you go through your days.

As you can see there are a lot of things for you to consider when you are thinking about starting a home-based custom embroidery business. However, your business can be very successful and profitable if you take the time to make it so!

Machine embroidery has been around for many years. However, all of the machine embroidery of the past was done by very large and expensive machines housed within specialty businesses. In the past if you were a business and wanted your logos sewn onto baseball hats or other promotional items, then you went to a custom embroidery business and they did it for you. Thanks to the declining costs of computers and technology advances, home sewers now have the capability of doing custom machine embroidery in their own homes.

The art of creating custom machine embroidery is called embroidery digitizing. Embroidery digitizing involves using a personal computer, an embroidery sewing machine, and a special digitizing software application.

Using digitizing software install on your personal computer, you can transfer a design into one which can be embroidered. However, this is not a simple “click-of-the-mouse” conversion; it is done by hand and takes some time and skills. To digitize a design you need to dissect the design into sections and layers and design how each area will look with another.

Once you have your basic design digitized, you then have to spend time with the special software tools tweaking out the design so that it will look good once your embroidery machine embroiders it. Because thread embroidery designs are three dimensional not all designs will look good once they have been digitized. The software is very helpful in this area and in showing you which areas to change.

To be successful with embroidery digitizing software you must be an experienced sewer and knowledgeable of the various types of fabrics on the market. Fabric moves differently when sewn and you will have to account for this in your designs.

Embroidery digitizing software requires you to have a fairly powerful personal computer. You will need one with a lot of system memory, a strong processor, a USB port, and a lot of free disk space. The better the personal computer you use, the easier it will be for you to design your embroidery projects and the easier it will be for your computer to transfer them.

When you are looking to purchase digitizing software there are a few things you should be looking for. The first is that the software itself should be easy to install and use. You should be able to digitize on your computer screen by being able to control scaling, match components to the onscreen grids, zoom in and zoom out, and pan from one area of a design to another.

Many digitizers today can easily allow you to expand or shrink your designs and they will automatically adjust your stitch count and density to meet the new design size. This is very important and can save you a lot of time.

Another important thing you want to have in your digitizing software is the ability to see the true thread colors both on your computer monitor and on your color printer. This allows you to make sure you use just the right colors in your designs and that the embroidered design meets any logo requirements as well.

As you can see, computer digitized embroidery is not a simple process. However, once you learn the basics it can be a very satisfying craft or business venture for you. You will be truly amazed at your results after learning the software and creating your first few designs.

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