A craft and business idea for home workers

"Cutting Lace"

There are a lot of people looking for craft and business ideas for home based work. I get emails all the time asking how to start their own business. Quite often they say they have just learned to knit or crochet and now want to start a business.

Hate to burst their bubble but it is not that simple. Yes it is difficult to make a profitable craft and business of knitting and crochet for an experienced person. It would be near impossible for the beginner.

But don’t lose hope. Usually if you are interested in one craft you are interested in others also. Working with our hands come natural for us.

Cutting Lace Knitting Patterns

For many years I had a side business where I worked with a local manufacture. This plant knit tablecloths, table runners, curtains and table toppers on these huge machines. The edging had to be cut away according to the design. We called it scalloping lace and used hot wood cutting knives to do this to keep the fabric from running.

Then the product had to be folded in a specific manner and packaged. These items were for stores and catalogs such as Big Lots, K-Mart and Spiegel.

Knitting Mill

I was one of 8 contractors the worked with them. Weekly I would pick up a load of whatever they needed completed. Bring it home and subcontractors or home workers would than come to my house to pick up their work for the week. They would complete it and bring it back on the designated day. This repeated each week, drop off completed work and pick up a new batch of lace.

They would be paid by the piece and payday was weekly. They had to buy their own hot knives but all other supplies such as lace; the manufacturer supplied all cardboard inserts, plastic bags and labels.

This was a side job for me as I only had to week one day a week. I had the rest of the week to work at my main business. It worked for the subcontractor because they could earn at home.

Starting A Craft Business

There are all kinds of craft and business I have dealt with. I am explaining this to you because I want you to realize there are many ways to earn at home. Not all will be knitting and crochet but not all of us can knit and crochet well enough to earn money from it.

I had to stop the contractor business after many years because I could no longer haul the totes of lace anymore. I would be loading and unloading the completed product than loading and unloading the new work. As I got older it began to get to be too much for me. So I stopped cutting lace but it sure was great extra money for my subcontractors and me.

When I quit I had about 30 women and 1 man working with me. Nobody was getting rich but it sure helped pay the bills and the subcontractors were happy to be earning and home with the children.

Contract work at home

Selling on ebay