A sewing machine and a full order book
How a tailoring business run from home went from mending clothes to taking orders across town.
Names and places in this story have been left out to protect the people in it.
For years, a tailor in a northern province worked from one room of the family home with a hand-cranked machine borrowed from a neighbour. Most of the work was mending: hems, patches, buttons.
The turning point
Through Be the Hope she joined a short business course, then received a grant and a new electric sewing machine. The course taught her to price new garments properly and to keep a simple order book.
Six months on
She now makes dresses and children's clothes to order and has taken on an apprentice. Customers find her by word of mouth, and the order book is full weeks ahead.
"The machine is faster," she says, "but the order book changed more. Now I know what each piece costs me, and what I earn."
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