Interview; Sew Anonymous
July’s “Nautical but Nice” themed Classic and Luxury boxes included a fabulous “Bobbin Along” greetings card designed by Aimee at Sew Anonymous. I chatted to her to find out more about how she started her business.
Hi Aimee, what’s on the agenda today?
Hi all! Today on the agenda is to get some orders packed to go out to our lovely customers and get back to my favourite hobby of designing labels, cards and prints!
You only opened Sew Anonymous last year, what made you choose to open your own incredible fabric shop?
It was a really on a whim kind of decision!
The pandemic had just begun, and I was just finishing uni for the year. I started sewing in March 2020 and began to interact with the sewing community on Facebook initially. I used to sit and observe the fabric auctions that went on and liked the idea of buying and selling fabric! (I had a mild obsession with hoarding fabric!) So I started to research a lot, set up my own website, and the rest is kind of history!
How was it starting a new business in the middle of a pandemic?
You know what, actually, not that bad! There were a few shortages and delays at the beginning with stock because of wholesale warehouses closing, but other than that, it’s been relatively smooth. But honestly, I don’t really have the experience of setting up a business beforehand, so I have nothing to compare it to! But right now, it’s been great having our own family business that we can take control of the hours we work and be with each other more than I may have been if I went back to working for someone else. I can’t complain!
When and why did you start creating your own set of sewing themed prints and greetings cards?
I really enjoyed the process of setting up my own website and I was using different graphics tools to design banners etc. I started designing posts for our Instagram grid and blog infographics and realised that I enjoyed that a lot. My creative outlet used to be to sew, but having a fabric business, I was finding that I wasn’t able to do that as often as I was in the beginning. So having another form of an outlet where I could put my energy back into my business was a pretty therapeutic but valuable skill to learn! The cards were the first design I came up with, and the prints seemed like a natural progression! We have now added labels to our collections, and we have more ideas that we’d like to introduce in the future! So stay tuned!
What’s next for Sew Anonymous?
As mentioned in the previous question, I’d love to continue designing new products as often as I can. Because as much as it’s great to add these new and exciting products to our business, it’s actually a creative outlet for me too! I put a lot of thought and time into all of these different ideas, and I’d love to keep expanding on that! On the fabric side of our business, we hope that we can keep gaining an amazing customer base and share our journey going forward! Thank you so much for having us! We hope you enjoy your mermaid cards! Those are definitely one of my all-time favourite designs! Aimee 🙂