I thought it might be nice to share what a typical work day looks like here at Little & Lively. If you've ever wondered what kinds of tasks occupy most of our time, here's a little 'behind the scenes' glimpse. If you also own your own business, you'll understand that each day can vary so much. We may be spending the day planning photo shoots, pattern drafting, fabric cutting, material selecting/ordering, order fulfilling, networking, marketing and the list goes on!
There are so many benefits to running a business from home. Besides the obvious ones (being my own boss and being at home with my kids), I also get to catch up on Netflix while I'm doing the boring stuff (like ironing and tagging), or 'hang out' with my hubby curled up on a couch while catching up on emails.
One of the sublime benefits of working from home is the flexibility to bring tasks outdoors! My portable cutting table set up allows me to do just that. Here's my cutting table set up in our back yard. Why wouldn't I soak up some rays, smell the lavender and listen to birds sing while I work on a day like this?
Cutting is a two person job so I always plan to do this on days when my employee, JoJo is scheduled to work with me. Presently, we still to a lot of the work by hand (without a rolling machine or end cutter). Once our fabric is laid, we plan how we'll lay the pattern pieces to utilize the fabric as efficiently as possible (whether we are cutting for baby girl dresses, baby rompers, baby leggings, etc).
I have a small Kingbow cloth cutter that can cut up to 3" of stacked fabrics easily. (It can cut other things really well too, I've found, like fingers!) You'll notice that I now wear protective gloves to prevent any other injuries!
After cutting out all my pieces, I bundle and label the panels and record the information for my sewers. Each of my sewers seem to have different strengths so I do my best to get to know their strengths and give them work that they will enjoy and excel at.
On days that it doesn't work to cut outside, we can set this up in the garage or in the house. Here's a shot of a very satisfying stack of fabrics being cut in our dining room.
My older daughter, Daphne, isn't very excited to see the work table come out so we tend to do this on the days that she goes to daycare. But on this day Daphne was a sweetheart and posed for a shot with her mama!
This is the third post of a three part 'Behind the Brand' blog series. If you want to find out more about our business you can read about our Little & Lively family here and see our Studio Space here.