Light Industry

My mother sewed beautifully and also crocheted and knitted. She made substantial income from home taking in sewing for years while nominally obeying my father's edict that "No wife of mine will ever work."

My aunt who lived nearby and had four kids supplemented her income with her crocheting.  She had a template for cutting visors from aluminum beverage cans and then would crochet a band for it. Kind of like just the visor part of a baseball cap attached to a headband, no head covering, with your favorite soda or beer logo on it and in a variety of colors. 

She held a yard sale every year like clockwork and would stockpile a stack of these for the yard sale. They always sold well and it was something she could make in one sitting while watching TV or whatever. It was something she could fit into her schedule without it being a burden and she had a means for easily turning it into money.

I have dreamed for years and years of having my own clothing line. That dream has its own website and I've thought a lot about just how would you go from idea to actual business. 

I had applied for an economic development job and I imagined making my own clothes to dress appropriately for that job and imagined that like the founder of the defunct knitwear company French Rags, people would ask me where I got that and unlike when I lived in Manhattan Kansas when people were asking me that, instead of telling them I bought it someplace a thousand miles from here, I would tell them "I made it." and this would lead to a business. 

I also imagined I would run a maker space and have access to a knitting machine to learn on without having to own one myself to get started. I never got that job and I've spent substantial time trying to re-imagine a path to a viable business. 

So hypothetically I learn to make my own clothes from scratch at home. This is legal anywhere. It's a hobby, not a business, and an essential first step for proof of concept: Can I make clothes AT ALL?

Hypothetically, I then try my hand at selling a few items. Again, my understanding is that making enough stuff at home to sell once a year at a yard sale or otherwise casually is a hobby and shouldn't get me in trouble for running a business from home.

But when I have tried to look stuff up online, I'm stymied. I find general information like the following two pieces and to my frustration "making clothes" is considered "light industry."

Light industry according to Wikipedia.

Article on light industry with examples

I'm trying to figure out how much clothes I can manufacture at home before it exceeds some threshold and gets me in trouble with government if I don't acquire commercial or industrial space and move my operation out of my residence. 

And I fantasize about getting a knitting machine. Here, too, if you look up "knitting machine," a lot of what comes up is a relatively small, inexpensive device in the neighborhood of $50 that helps you hand knit stuff easier. 

What I have in mind is a programmable knitting machine costing hundreds or thousands of dollars. And I have absolutely no idea if I'm allowed to own one in my hobby room of my residence for making MY clothes because I never learned to sew, knit or crochet like my relatives, much less "Just how many pieces can I make and sell from home before government thinks I'm a bad girl?'

A good sewing machine can be quite expensive and it's a hobbyist item for making stuff for yourself and your family and friends. My mom sewed and my dad sold and repaired sewing machines for some years and at one time they had their own store for selling and repairing sewing machines and cloth, patterns, etc. Think Joann's on a smaller scale. 

Spending hundreds on a programmable knitting machine is potentially a middle class American hobbyist decision, and never mind how crazy that sounds to a poor person who can't imagine such a personal indulgence and views an expensive knitting machine as a capital investment that only makes sense as the basis for a business that has some hope of paying for itself over time.

If I own one programmable knitting machine making my own clothes at home, am I a hobbyist? If I own two and sell from home, am I a hobbyist still or have I crossed some threshold and now it's a manufacturing business and not appropriate to do from home?

When I lived in Germany, I visited one of my aunts. She worked from home doing piece work for a local clothing manufacturer. 

She had been doing that for years. You pick it up, take it home, get paid by the piece -- thus the term piece work -- and return it to your employer by the deadline. 

I have no idea how many large scale clothing manufacturers get some portion of the work done by hand by piece workers who do the work at home. 

If I successfully develop clothing patterns you can make on a programmable knitting machine that people will buy, how do I scale the business once I have proof of concept and a growing number of orders?

Do I NEED a big building and floor full of noisy machines? Or would it make more sense to hire individuals to work from home and supply them a machine?

My father and mother helped someone set up a manufacturing business. I was a child and I have no idea how much compensation my parents got for that, but probably not enough because I can say for certain that business would not have happened without them.

I went with my father to walk the land when the facility was purchased. It was a large industrial building that had been sitting unused for years. My father cleared trees from the land, some of which had grown THROUGH the fencing because it had been unused, ignored, neglected land for so very long.

While they were working to set up the manufacturing stuff in the building, a family friend was hired as the nighttime security guard. She was a single mom and she just needed to physically be there all night to deter theft and vandalism.

This was before things like Door Dash and Uber Eats, so my parents brought her a hot meal around 9pm or 10pm that my mother had prepared. Other early key employees were found through my parents, including their buyer (my brother) and the big boss's secretary who typed 160 wpm (my brother's girlfriend).

So I'm not unfamiliar with how you do something like that but I don't know how you do something that makes sense and isn't exploitative and also I have no idea how someone like me with ideas and no capital gets there from here.

Because my parents were key people whose practical skills, knowledge and social contacts were critical to the creation of that business and, no, they weren't listed as founders and didn't get stock in a corporation. They mostly got jobs for friends of theirs and a little money for some pieces of the work they did. 

This website exists in part because of experiences like that. The people with capital often get the credit and the profit when none of that would exist without the little guy and their practices are frequently exploitative and extractive.

I'm pro small business and small business needs an injection of information to help them swim with the sharks and not get eaten.