Crafting Heroes Interview with Jenny Hart; Owner of Sublime Stitching, authoress, and saviour of Embroidery!

Woo Hoo! Here is another fabulous Crafting Heroes Interview hot off the press. I am really loving these interviews. Like you, I am finding them so inspiring and full of great advice on how to run my own business. For those of you who don’t yet know, I asked the lovely readers of my other blog to vote for their favourite Crafting Heroes and LOADS of them responded, it was great! There are more wonderful Crafting Heroes interviews in the pipeline and this one is no exception…

This time the I’m featuring the lovely Jenny Hart. Lots of you will already know and love Jenny from her deliciously different embroidery. Not only is she deft with her own needle, she also provides tuition, embroidery supplies, and inspiration through her wonderful books and her one-stop embroidery shop. Read Jenny’s impressive bio here (woo, she works hard!). In our interview Jenny shares with us her experiences of starting up and running her own Craft Business.

You can also find Jenny here:

www.sublimestitching.com - her design company
www.jennyhart.net - her fabulous artwork
http://venuszine.com/users/JennyHart - her craft business advice column

Here’s Jenny with her magic needle at work.

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CraftBoom! : How long have you been in craft business?

Jenny: I founded Sublime Stitching in late 2001, about a year after I took up embroidery.

CraftBoom! : Where/how do you sell your items, and do you work from home?

Jenny: I sell primarily online, although our wholesale accounts have grown enormously in the last couple of years. I work from a home office and studio, along with a staff of three. There’s also an extended staff of advisors and consultants (a financial advisor, a couple of attorneys, a literary agent) who are instrumental in making all I try to do actually happen.

Want to stitch on your T-shirt? This stuff will prevent a lot of swearing and make it whole lot easier by preventing the fabric stretching as you sew.

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CraftBoom! : What made/inspired you to go into craft business, and what were you doing before?

Jenny: When I first took up embroidery, I had never tried it before and once I did, I became completely addicted to it. This was in the summer of 2000, and the handmade movement was just really starting up, with a heavy focus on knitting. No one was really doing anything with embroidery or decorative needlework of any kind, and there were no new resources for it. I was so taken with embroidery, and wanted to turn other crafters on to it as well, but knew they’d need updated patterns, starter kits and instructions that didn’t assume anything. None of those resources were available. My mission as a company was to change the way people looked at and learned embroidery.

Before doing Sublime Stitching full time, I was working in an art museum, archiving works on paper. I got to work with very old prints and drawings (17th and 18th century) and even had a sketch of Rembrandt’s on my desk once. I was responsible for the proper archiving, transport and display of works on paper for the museum’s collection. I did this work for five years, for two museums (The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, The Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas).

Jenny’s latest project with Chronicle Books; Craft Pad which is full of groovy iron on embroidery transfers - available in March.

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CraftBoom!: How did you finance the start-up of your business?

Jenny: With a very modest but generous loan of $1,000.00 from my parents. I had to outline an entire budget to my father and account for every dime, which I did. It covered my first manufacturing costs, shipping, packaging and my first print ad. They asked that I pay back half once I turned a profit which I did six months later. I never borrowed money again until five years into running the company. I have been very careful about the kind of debt I’ve acquired and have avoided costly loans or over-use of credit cards.

CraftBoom! : How do you decide what you are going to sell?

Jenny: I’d had the idea to do hip, updated embroidery patterns for several years before I actually did it. I love to draw, and that seemed like a logical way for me to support myself doing something I loved to do. I also couldn’t believe that contemporary designs for embroidery weren’t available. Everything was stuck in a time warp with bunnies and teddy bears- I felt the outdated look of the designs was contributing to the decline in interest. So, I decided I’d start my own design company offering the kinds of patterns, tools and kits you couldn’t buy anywhere that I wished were available when I was learning.

You get get your mitts on cute designs like this and all of your embroidery needs in Jenny’s fab shop.

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CraftBoom! : When did you realise that your craft business had real potential?

Jenny: I knew it immediately from the response I got, which was overwhelming. People were starved for new designs, and those who’d wanted to try embroidery but couldn’t find anything they liked in terms of patterns, or instructions they could follow started visiting my site in droves. I also started to get national and international press which increased the demand greatly. I’ve continually faced the challenge of keeping up with the demand!

CraftBoom! : What things do you do to market your business?

Jenny: I do a lot of print advertising, trade shows, markets and always carry promo cards with me to tack up in coffee shops. I still do this! I keep business cards on me, and hand them out whenever someone asks what I do.

CraftBoom! : What things do you know now that you wish you knew from the beginning?

Jenny: Nothing. That’s what has made it all so rewarding- the learning process. I also think if I knew too much ahead of time, I never would have started! You get involved, get to the next step and then the next…and whoops! You’re in to deep to quit now! If I’d known too much in advance I might have said “Forget it! It’ll be too much work!” and it is an *enormous* amount of work. But I love it. It keeps me busy and the customers and fans keep me going.

Yep, Jenny does work hard to forward the craft movement, she was a featured speaker at the last Maker Faire at which she also had booth. Her booth was surrounded by a wire fence which turned out to be just perfect for doing a spot of feather stitch. Contributing to the crafting movement like this is wonderful for craft in general and it also raises your profile.

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CraftBoom! : What do you love most about running your own craft business, and what do you like least?

Jenny: I love being creative and doing what I want to do instead of working for someone else’s approval or having to change my ideas according to what someone over my head thinks is best. I get to put my work out there as I see it. The hardest part is: getting your work out there as you see it! I’m constantly overwhelmed with ideas and lacking the resources to realize them.

The thing I like the least is administrative work. At the beginning, it’s so necessary that you do these things yourself, to at least understand how they work and affect your business. As you grow, you can bring in people you trust to take on those responsibilities for you (doing the books, handling customer emails, tax paperwork and other tasks that feel like chores for you).

CraftBoom! : What advice would you give to newbies who want to start their own craft business?

Jenny: This is the question I least like being asked, because there’s no easy answer! Educate yourself. Do it. Be realistic about your goals and stop if you don’t enjoy doing it any more. If your goal is to make money fast, don’t do it. If your goal is to be independent and see arises from something you’re passionate about, go for it. You might be surprised. My goal is, and always has been, simply to maintain my independence as an artist, a designer…a human being. I’m thrilled to be able to support myself financially, but I’m hardly rich in the conventional sense. I am however, rich with independence and freedom. That’s all I ever wanted. I want to do work that makes me happy and fulfilled and want to be sure those working for me feel the same way.

One of Jenny’s WIPs, isn’t it just beautiful! Woman with brown hair.

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CraftBoom! : Are you satisfied with the income that your craft business brings?

Jenny: Yes, because I’m now paying myself a liveable wage through the company alone (which wasn’t the case up until a year ago). While I’ve been able to support myself full-time for five years doing Sublime Stitching, it’s been very up-and-down, with tax surprises and lean times. Which, I think any small business goes through. As a company, we are currently stabilizing our costs and income. But, I’m still underpaid (aren’t we all!), and so is my staff. We all know this, and also feel the likelihood that it will continue to change and grow is worth the work effort. But in order for the company to grow, we need to increase our income. That’s always on the table, for any business. We are still an independently owned and operated company who relies entirely on the support of our customers. And, they’re the best, they really are.

CraftBoom! : What are your plans for future growth?

Jenny: This might sound funny, but I actually want to increase our growth by reducing our manufacturing. I’d like to be able to offer more downloadable (for pay) goods via the website that prevent the need for using resources to create them (to lessen the impact on the environment for one thing), and continuing to focus on what we’ve always offered: information and resources for others’ creativity. While we’ll always offer tangible end-products, I’m very proud that our main product is re-usable, inexpensive and 100% recyclable!

Check out this kit. The Ultimate Embroidery Kit is a complete starter kit that you can customize online with your choice of patterns (from 40 themes) and project (pillowcase, teatowel, apron, etc). Most embroidery kits only have the supplies needed for the project shown on the cover, and there weren’t any kits that offered all the tools in one place to get you started. This is that kit! It will make hundreds of projects.

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Thank you so much for your inspirational and informative interview Jenny; keep up the good work with your wonderful embroidery shop, your book writing, and all of the work that you do to promote the craft movement. Best of luck with everything you do.

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