How to organise sewing classes without losing the thread

How to organise sewing classes without losing the thread

Have you been spend­ing count­less hours at your sewing machine? Do you con­sid­er your­self a sewing expert? So, what could be more sat­is­fy­ing than tak­ing it to the next lev­el: pass­ing on your knowl­edge to peo­ple who want to learn sewing. With the right tools, you can organ­ise sewing class­es and turn it into a busi­ness in its own right. Fol­low these few tips and you’ll be ready to get started!

Con­tents

  1. Find­ing students
  2. Choos­ing what you will teach
  3. Cre­at­ing a les­son plan
  4. Set­ting the price of your classes
  5. Find­ing a loca­tion for your classes

1. Finding students

Before you start organ­is­ing sewing class­es, you should find out if there is a need for it around you. If no one is inter­est­ed in sewing in or around your city, the project seems risky.

Look for exist­ing sewing schools and cours­es. Their pres­ence means that there is demand for these class­es but also that you will have to stand out to attract stu­dents to your class­es. How­ev­er, don’t be dis­cour­aged if there are already well-estab­lished cours­es, which may seem “bet­ter” than yours as it is a mat­ter of opin­ion, and you prob­a­bly have your own per­son­al style to contribute.

No oth­er class or school on the hori­zon? Then ask peo­ple around you if this might be of inter­est to them, or if any­one has ever com­plained about a lack of sewing class­es around the city. Don’t start if you don’t find any evi­dence of inter­est, or maybe slow­ly start from home with a low start-up cost — work part-time on it and see where the idea and the project take you.

2. Choosing what you will teach

Will you teach sewing? embroi­dery? both? It’s up to you to choose what you want to teach. It seems appro­pri­ate to focus on a few spe­cif­ic tech­niques rather than try­ing to cov­er too much ground. It is gen­er­al­ly bet­ter to be an expert in a few areas than aver­age in everything.

If you are not famil­iar with cer­tain sewing or embroi­dery tech­niques, do not teach them. There is noth­ing worse than being left with­out a solu­tion when faced with the demands of a stu­dent who expects a min­i­mum of knowl­edge from you. Learn before you teach — your stu­dents see you as a role mod­el, and if you dis­ap­point them, it will have an impact on your class­es and their reputation.

To be per­fect­ly organ­ised, you can plan one type of class on Tues­days, anoth­er on Thurs­days, and a final one on Sat­ur­days. They will be aimed at dif­fer­ent audi­ences and will allow you to vary your offer. Weezevent can help you set up ses­sions in less time than it takes to sew up a sock with a hole in it.

3. Creating a lesson plan

Will you be teach­ing begin­ners or peo­ple with some sewing expe­ri­ence? Will your lessons focus on sev­er­al projects (e.g. two shapes of dress­es, three cuts of T‑shirts, etc.), a sin­gle theme (e.g. sewing a skirt for begin­ners) or just one tech­nique (e.g. sewing a zipper)?

It seems prefer­able to teach spe­cif­ic tech­niques or projects, such as how to cross stitch a nap­kin or cro­chet a scarf, rather than to teach sewing as a whole. The more suc­cess­ful­ly your stu­dents mas­ter a tech­nique or project, the more they will want to con­tin­ue learn­ing from you.

The num­ber of tech­niques or projects taught, the num­ber of ses­sions, and their dura­tion, must also be care­ful­ly con­sid­ered. This is also true for the pro­gramme of the class­es. We rec­om­mend you to teach dif­fi­cult tech­niques at the begin­ning of the class, when the stu­dents’ atten­tion is still fresh. They will be more recep­tive to your advice and bet­ter able to put it in practice.

With begin­ners, you should start with the basics: how to use a sewing machine, how to sew in a straight line, etc.

4. Setting the price of your classes

When you decide on the price for your sewing class­es, you must first choose your price unit: an hour, a ses­sion, a day, a month, a cer­tain num­ber of projects, etc. Many ele­ments will influ­ence your pric­ing. For exam­ple, the com­plex­i­ty of the tech­niques taught, the dura­tion of the class, the prices applied by com­peti­tors, and your con­tri­bu­tion in terms of equipment/tools will play a sig­nif­i­cant part.

Write a les­son plan, with a list of ses­sions and tech­niques or projects. This will give you an esti­mate of the com­plex­i­ty and dura­tion of each sewing class.

Regard­less of the price set, be sure to col­lect your fee before each class. To do this, you can use a user-friend­ly online tool: an online reg­is­tra­tion solu­tion. This ensures that you receive your fees on time. Above all, stu­dents who have paid for their class on a web­site will be more moti­vat­ed to attend, com­pared with unde­cid­ed peo­ple who have been giv­en the choice between pay­ing on loca­tion or online.

Choose the hourly rate you want to apply and mul­ti­ply it by the num­ber of teach­ing hours. Then divide it by the num­ber of stu­dents, and you will have found your fair price.

Then adjust accord­ing to demand. If it is high, you can increase prices, and con­verse­ly if it demand is low. In both cas­es, don’t over­do it, it’s rarely a good solution.

5. Finding a location for your classes

The loca­tion of your class­es may vary great­ly depend­ing on the expect­ed num­ber of stu­dents. You can use your stu­dio for a pri­vate les­son but will need a large room for a group les­son. Most­ly, be care­ful not to ded­i­cate your entire bud­get to the venue, espe­cial­ly if you need to rent spe­cif­ic equip­ment — sewing machines, lamps, scis­sors, etc. — and/or pur­chase sup­plies — fab­rics, yarns, rib­bons, etc. — for your students.

Gen­er­al­ly, teach­ers start their sewing class busi­ness at home, with a room turned into a sewing stu­dio. In any case, your main dri­ver will be pas­sion rather than mon­ey. Over time, the busi­ness may prove to be prof­itable, but you will go through sev­er­al stages first, and you must be deter­mined to offer the best class­es to your stu­dents. Then, there may come a time when you need to look for the per­fect venue.

Get start­ed now with the right tools, includ­ing our all-in-one reg­is­tra­tion solu­tion. Its many user-friend­ly ser­vices will be a wel­come help from day 1 of your busi­ness ven­ture! Dis­cov­er them by click­ing on the but­ton below:

Organ­ise classes

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