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Mobile Seamstress has Roots in Incubator

Connie Combs has spent most of her life sewing — repairing old clothes and creating new designs for apparel and home decorations. What she really needed, however, was an office.

Combs, who calls herself the Mobile Seamstress, had already found a way to make a living off her sewing talents. She offered alterations and custom sewing, but had to pick up and drop off her orders because she didn’t have a space from which to work. When she had a chance a year ago to set up shop in the downtown Anderson Business Incubator, she jumped on it.

On Sept. 1, Combs accepted membership into the Greater Anderson Business Club and celebrated her one-year anniversary as an ABI tenant.

“I love it,” she said. “I love the networking. There’s so many different people up here, tips and ideas that you get from others. It includes everything I need to set up business.

“It’s been really a blessing to me.”

The ABI, at 700 N. Meridian St., allows its tenants to rent affordable office space while they start their own businesses. The facility is related to the Flagship Enterprise Center on the city’s southwest side.

Combs had been trying to start her Mobile Seamstress business for a couple months before she received the opportunity to move into the ABI. She said it would have taken too many improvements to her own home to be able to run the business from there.

“Being in the incubator has given me the knowledge I can do it,” Combs said. “If it hadn’t been for the ABI, I don’t know if I would have continued with my dream or not.”

Combs’ small office and sewing area in the ABI are outfitted to serve her business well. Quilts hanging on the walls and serving as the door to her fitting room tell of her quilting hobby, and a rocking chair for guests completes the homey feel of the office. Hundreds of spools of thread hang from one wall behind Combs’ sewing machines. Scraps of fabric fill another table in the corner of the room.

Combs can do alterations on any piece of clothing, including bridal dresses. She also creates custom sewing projects and welcomes customers who’d like to bring in a pattern and fabric and ask her to sew an item. Combs has sewed clothing, curtains, pillows, handbags and other items.

Although customers are welcome to come to her office in Suite 255 of the ABI, Combs hasn’t lost her mobile roots. She still will pick up and drop off items to her clients.

“I’m hoping that will expand as more people get to know me,” she said.

Large projects at the Mobile Seamstress will cost about $20 an hour. Pants hemming costs $7-8, shirt sleeve length adjustments cost $10 and zipper replacements cost $7-12.

Combs taught herself how to sew in high school. As the oldest — and only girl — out of six children, she often sewed clothes for her family, as her mother and grandmother did.

“I wore some pretty awful looking stuff for a while,” she said, “but I kept getting better and better and I got compliments.”

Although she took a brief break from sewing in the 1970s, she picked it up again in the 1980s, doing projects for co-workers at the bank where she worked, and has been sewing ever since.

Sewing also provides Combs with the money she needs to continue her real passion — quilting.

“That’s my therapy,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons I started my business, so I could support my habit.”

Combs’ ultimate goal is to grow out of the ABI and have her own storefront, providing jobs for others who like to sew.

“That’s my dream, and I want to be able to help somebody else get going as well,” she said. “I know the direction I want to take. I get so many ideas sometimes that it’s frustrating I can’t do them right away.”

Source: Herald Bulletin