What’s new at the market is another success story of a business finding its footing at the market.

This year, Brenda Lawson struck out of her sewing room and into business. The stay-at-home mom is spreading her wings and soaring with confidence that she built at the market with her business, Loop N Stitch.

Lawson grew up in Sequim except during her high school years when her family moved to Port Angeles. As a young girl she would dabble on her mother’s sewing machine because she loved creating things and she loved the fabrics and their textures.

When she was 13 years old, she cashed in all of her 4-H earnings and bought herself a sewing machine. That is when she began sewing her clothes, making herself full length skirts and as a very tall high school student, she decided to sew her own prom dress so it would actually fit.

After high school, she worked as an assistant office manager and then moved up to manager until she had children. Then as a stay-at-home mom she says she began “sewing like crazy” and she hasn’t stopped.

Lawson makes most of the clothes her kids wear. She makes lots of full length twirly skirts that her 6-year-old daughter Kaylee loves, and for 3-year-old A.J. lots of pants plus embroidery embellishments on his shirts.

Last winter, she began making bags as a complement to a product a friend was selling; this prompted her to get a business license. Then she realized that like her grandmother, she too could make some money doing alterations.

“When I look at a garment, I can see how it was constructed,” Lawson says. That makes it possible for her to take things apart, alter them and sew them back together, so she began doing alterations for friends and family.

Then Lawson saw a Facebook post about someone needing bridesmaid alterations and then that led her down a path of doing multiple jobs for a current vendor at our market.

After that, she felt it was a natural progression for her to join the market.

Stitching together a plan

Lawson needed a point of sale but she didn’t really want to start opening her home to potential customers that she didn’t know, nor did she want to travel to strangers’ houses. With some ingenuity, she put together a little dressing room that comes to the market each Saturday.

So here is how it works: You can bring your garment and she will pin it up, take it home and bring it back a week later. She will give you an estimate on the price when you drop it off.

There are some set prices like $10 for pants to be hemmed and for hemming a dress it is typically $20. If Lawson finds the estimate is incorrect, she will give you a call.

She also can put in new zippers or fix old ones. Occasionally there are quick fixes that happen at the market like the woman whose sandal broke on her trip to Sequim — Lawson sewed it up for her on site.

When I asked her how the market experience has been, Lawson enthusiastically says, “Amazing!” She says it is a great place to start with little investment and it is a huge confidence boost. It let her know that there is a need for this type of business and that it’s viable.

She says if you had told her a year ago that she would be running her own business, she wouldn’t have believed it. Lawson also says she really didn’t set out to do this, but that it has been an amazing and great adventure.

This fall Lawson is opening a shop in Carlsborg on Hooker Road under her same business name, Loop N Stitch. It will be a location for the work she does at the market and it also will have sewing classes.

She hopes to do project classes as well, where all the students make something to take home. This she will do in addition to the market.

Come to the market and bring Lawson sewing alterations, broken zippers or other compromised apparel for her to remedy. She also does embroidery on T-shirts, tablecloths and most anything.

This coming Saturday (Aug. 26), the Old Sidekicks will be playing live music from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. On Sept. 2 it will be Cort Armstrong on the music stage.

See you at the market!