We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melissa Clouser-Missett a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Melissa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
My professional background is in Education (my degree is in Art Education) and after teaching for a few years (English in the Philippines then Visual Arts in Baltimore and Boston) I ended up being a stay-at-home mama to my newborn twins throughout the pandemic. When it was time for me to work outside our home again, I wanted to continue teaching & creating but not necessarily in a school setting.
I had been sewing & quilting for many years and was selling my work online & at local events. I was also teaching sewing to kids via FaceTime during the pandemic and wanted to continue to teach sewing not only to kids, but also teens and adults. I loved teaching Art in schools, but I wanted to create a community-based arts space where kids *wanted* to be, not a place they *had* to be. I also wanted this space to be open to all ages and to have equipment people might not necessarily have access to otherwise. For instance, a longarm quilting machine is cost- & space-prohibitive for a lot of people so I wanted this new space to have one that people could use.
In 2021, I joined a local program to help early-stage businesses get started. I formed a business plan, thought through lots of different aspects of how to start and perpetuate a business, and learned a lot from my peers and the facilitators. I went from having an idea and no business experience to having a plan and the confidence & support to give it a go!
Melissa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I created a modern quilt shop & sewing studio called Cut & Sew PHL and opened it in Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. We are a bit different from your typical modern quilt shop in that we focus on sewing & quilting classes & workshops for all ages and carry new & secondhand fabrics. In our shop, you’ll find over 100 different colors of Kona quilting cotton fabrics and a large selection of what we call our “Previously Loved” fabrics. Our goal is to carry as many of the 365 Kona colors as possible to become a “one stop shop” for solid fabrics–we’re well on our way! As for our “Previously Loved” section, we know that sewing & quilting can get expensive! We aim to make our space and resources accessible to as many people as possible. We do that by offering a tiered pricing scale on our classes and studio rentals, and by accepting donations of quilting cotton fabrics, sewing tools, thread, notions, etc. We sell these donated items in our shop and the students in our kids’ classes get to “shop” from this selection for their projects! This helps us keep costs down so we can offer a “Community Rate” to anyone who could benefit from a reduced rate for classes (for any age). We also accept monetary donations from our community (in the form of “tips” at checkout and via Venmo) so that people who are able can help support the Community Fund for others. In addition to helping support our tiered pricing scale, our Previously Loved section also helps to reduce the carbon footprint of the sewing and quilting world, It’s not unusual in the sewing world for a person’s fabric “stash” to grow beyond what they could reasonably sew through, so we provide a way for people to rehome fabrics they once loved and know that they’re going to be used and loved–instead of being thrown in a landfill somewhere. We recycle or repurpose every bit of textile scrap produced in our studio!
I’m most proud of the strength of the kids’ program we’ve developed in our first year of business! I have a team of 5 instructors who teach our kids’ program (called Spool School PHL) and I’m proud to say they’re all coming back for Year 2 (except for one who is getting ready to welcome a new baby–but I’m sure she’ll come back when she’s ready!). I developed our kid-led teaching philosophy after noticing on many occasions that when kids have the space, materials, and available instruction to explore their own ideas, that’s when the magic happens! Our instructors work with our students to make sure they have the necessary sewing skills to bring their ideas to life. We meet them where they are and build upon their skills project by project. In this supportive creative environment, kids often end up inspiring and teaching each other!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
After I had gone through a business development course, I began to scout out possible locations for my new business. I reached out to many property owners and looked at many spaces before I found the best place for us. (There was no information listed on the building, so I had to do a bit of internet sleuthing and cold calling. Luckily, it worked out perfectly because we have the best property owners & manager!). Just a week or so before I was planning to sign my 3-year lease, I became aware of another soon-to-be quilt shop that was planning to open in the same neighborhood! I ended up reaching out to the owner and we chatted about our dreams for our shops, and it was clear that we would be able to carve out our own niches so that we could both be successful in the same community. We ended up starting our leases on the exact same day–what are the chances!
While it’s not ideal to have a direct competitor open at the same time in the same place, I’ve been able to build up a unique business I’m really proud of. We have unique shop offerings, a solid lineup of classes that are teaching hundreds of people (of all ages) how to sew, a longarm we teach people to use, and an incredible team of creatives that make it all possible. I’m proud that we’ve been able to build such a strong foundation for our shop and studio in our very first year.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
I learned how to sew from my Nana when I was in elementary school–I remember making a pair of tie-dye shorts with her one summer. At the end of high school, I was gifted a sewing machine from my parents, and I got really into quilting soon after. I was making a lot of quilts and needed to find a way to move them along so I could keep making more. I started selling my work online and at local markets but found that I needed to make lower priced items to make a profit at in-person events. My work evolved and the more I made the more I had to sell. I started strengthening the business side and that turned my creative pursuit into a side hustle. Then I started offering custom work and teaching and that eventually led to putting a greater emphasis on teaching, which led me to developing a plan for a studio space.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://cutandsewphl.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cutandsew.phl/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cutandsew.phl