They use social media sites to advertise themselves such as Facebook...
…Pinterest…
…Twitter…
The company has its own website which looks very good and is very easy to navigate around. The colours that are used in the website are very pale colours such as pale pinks, yellows and greens.
Currently the brand has a very good look to it and looks very craft unlike some of the other sewing stores in the area. They currently have a very simple but effective logo which I personally think looks very good. I love the fact that its just one solid green mixed with white. But I believe that when looking at this logo on its own you wouldn't be able to tell that they sell craft products and sewing equipment. Think could have more detail added to it to show more what kind of items that they sell in their store.
Cambridge News wrote an article for Backstitch on the 1st May 2014. I believe that this article really captures what Backstitch is really about and why they run this store.
'Spend five minutes at Backstitch and, pound to a penny, you’ll develop a sudden and powerful urge to applique a cushion, patchwork a quilt, maybe run up a jaunty string of bunting. So you’ve never so much as threaded a needle? Details, details...
The latest addition to Burwash Manor, Barton’s chichi rural shopping centre, Backstitch is a trove lined with bolts of fabric, rolls of felt, reels of thread, tubes of buttons. Everything is bright and beautiful: it’s impossible not to feel inspired.
“It’s amazing how many people walk through the door and immediately start stroking the bolts of fabric,” laughs Alice Synge, the passionate hobby sewer behind the business. “It’s all very tactile. And I hope seeing these beautiful things does inspire people. I love sewing – and I want other people to love it too.”
The shop only opened a few weeks ago, but Alice has already recruited a veritable army
of regulars. “See this quilt?” she asks, gesturing to a spring-themed patchwork, spread out across the window workbench.“A customer made that. She came in one day and said ‘How do I make a quilt?’, so I told her to take a pack of squares away and stitch them together. Once she’d done that, she came back and I told her how to make the edging panels. She did it bit by bit – and that’s the end result. Isn’t it lovely?
“To be able to share my enthusiasm for sewing is brilliant; I do get very excited by other people’s projects. On occasion, I fear I become overexcited: they come in for some thread and I find
myself saying ‘Look! If
you take this felt and this button you can make
yourself a fish!’…“Sewing is like art, really, except you don’t have to be able to draw. Actually, in some ways, I think sewing is a bit like magic.”
After years in the cultural wilderness, sewing has recently come in from the cold. Do we have TV’s Great British Sewing Bee to thank? “The renewed interest in sewing was already there; it’s been building for the last five years or so,” says Alice. “So Sewing Bee tapped into that, rather than the other way round. But there’s no doubt the programme has had a big impact: when the first series aired last year, I sold no end of dress patterns.”
Alice has, you see, been running Backstitch since 2010. But it was solely an online enterprise until the March of this year, when the Burwash store opened.
“I don’t really know why I wanted to sew; I’m afraid there’s no great story,” admits Alice. “I’ve always been interested in colour and design, I suppose, and I’ve always loved fabric.
“My mum had an old Singer and when I was a teenager I used to get it out and make myself the most horrendous clothes: circle skirts and waistcoats. Well, it was the Nineties.
“Then, when I was in my 20s, I wanted to start sewing again and went hunting for a book to show me how, but there was nothing – nothing! – out there. I ended up making a bag which looked like a nosebag for a horse: it was totally unsuccessful. But I kept plugging away.”
It was when Alice had her children – Mil, now 7, and Emmett, 3 – that she started to sew more seriously. “When you make something for someone, what you’re really giving them is your love, isn’t it?
“I make the kids shorts for the summer, bags to take their stuff away on holiday – that kind of thing. I think they just think it’s normal for mums to sew; that’s all they’ve known.
“They think the iron is for sewing. Which it is, of course: it’s for sewing, weddings and funerals…”
Alice’s greatest sewing love is making quilts. “The first one I ever made was for my little sister when she was born; she’s quite a bit younger than me. I’m not sure what happened to that one, but I’ve still got the second quilt I made: that was a nine-patch (for the uninitiated, that’s a repeat pattern of nine-square blocks).
“Usually the first one you make is for a baby, then you make them for children’s beds, then maybe for a wedding present… There are lots of nice reasons to make a quilt. And you’re making something which keeps people warm – what more could you want than that?”
It was while at home with her own babies, living in deepest, darkest Somerset, that Alice decided to start her online fabric shop. “There was nothing online at the time – we’re talking five years ago now – and there was no John Lewis to go to. I saw a gap in the market and decided to fill it. In fact a handful of other online stores opened at the same time.”
Carving herself a niche online – specialising in bright, bold and contemporary fabrics – Alice says part of the pleasure of opening the Backstitch store has been in broadening her range.
“I didn’t do any haberdashery before, so that’s exciting. And I’ve also introduced dress fabric: I buy from a company which sells ends of designer lines – Paul Smith, all sorts of lovely things. That means I offer something a bit different; a lot of what you’ll find in high street shops is very samey.
“I’d describe my fabrics as fresh, modern and vibrant: all the good stuff! I am diversifying a bit – I want to get some more traditional florals – but I’ll never be able to buy a print I don’t like.”
Alice believes the credit crunch and ensuing austerity have stoked the renewed interest in sewing. “It’s not that sewing something yourself is cheaper than buying it from a shop; it’s almost certainly not.
“It’s more that, if they’re having less, people want the things they do have to be better quality – to be made to last – and also to have emotional significance; to mean something to them. I think the novelty of being able to go into a chain store and buy 10 pairs of pants for £2 has well and truly worn off.”
When Alice, her husband and little ones relocated from the South West to her native Cambridgeshire, to be closer to family and friends (“We felt we were missing out on all the fun stuff, being so far away”), she decided it was time to focus on what had been, up to that point, only a part-time business venture.
“I’d been searching for that thing, you know? That thing that was going to let me run my own business. And I realised sewing was it. I carried on working – I worked for a market research company, looking at buyer behaviour – up until this September, when I decided it was time to take Backstitch to the next level.
“It had been pootling along on the internet, but I knew I had to increase volume to make it viable, and I couldn’t do that from home. Plus, I wanted to be able to meet and get to know my customers. What I really want to do is make people happy.”
And Backstitch is a very happy place. The fabrics are lined up along one long wall in colour order; like a huge textile rainbow. That alone is enough to make any shopper smile. And all the bits and bobs – dinky enamelled embroidery scissors, spools of bright ribbon and ricrac, kits to make everything from a needlepoint clutch bag to a cushion in the shape of a lion – call out to be admired and, indeed, purchased.
Alice says the Cambridge area is a hotbed of crafting: “I get lots of customers who say ‘I heard about you at my crochet class/my quilting club/my WI’ – there are so many crafty types around here.”
But she adds that lots of people love the idea of sewing, but find the reality too daunting to try. “The truth is, it’s not that hard. Honestly! Some customers come in and love everything, but admit they’re too scared to make anything. Sometimes they’ve actually got a sewing machine, but it’s never come out of the box. The way I see it, all they need is a little push…”
That’s where Alice’s workshops come in: from this month onwards, she’ll be running regular classes, ranging from basic skills sessions for complete beginners (“literally how to turn the machine on, thread the needle, go backwards and forwards”) to a whole dress-making course.
“I love it when someone comes in with a colour code written on a little piece of paper, walks up to the rack of threads, finds the one they want and then heads straight to the till to pay their £1.60,” adds Alice. “You know they’re right in the middle of a project – and you’re helping them finish. There’s just something very satisfying about that.”'
In Cambridgeshire there are other stores that sell similar items to what Backstitch offers. Some of these shops are quite large shops with a lot of customers and can be well recognised. Companies that are similar are shown below:
Sew Creative has been established for over 40 years. They are a main dealer for Bernina, Janome, Brother, Frister + Rossmann, Elna, Babylock, Husqvarna, Singer and Pfaff sewing machines plus Horn Cabinets. In addition to sales of new machines they also stock used machines and offer a full servicing and repair service.
Sew Creative are the main supplier to schools and colleges for sewing machines & servicing in East Anglia.
They stock a vast array of craft materials and yarns, 100% cotton fabrics for patchwork and quilting as well as patchwork accessories.
They pride themselves on their product knowledge and customer service. Staff are fully trained to be able to offer advice on all models, including overlockers and the latest computerised embroidery machines and design software.
Although this company is not only situated in Cambridge it is also situated in Bury St Edmunds and also Norwich.
Another Company in Cambridgeshire that is similar to Backstitch is Bee Crafty.
This company is run by Sarah and Julie who are good friends who decided in 2011 to open a new kind of craft shop which is accessible to all. A place 'where a friendly welcome and a culpa along with a helping hand is as important as the wide range of beautiful stock.'
On Tuesdays and Wednesdays the shop is open for social stitching. People from around the area are invited to bring a project and join in with like minded crafters. On the second Thursdays of every month they do crochet club. In November 2012 Bee Crafty was awarded retailer of the month by British Patchwork & Quilting.
This company is run by Sarah and Julie who are good friends who decided in 2011 to open a new kind of craft shop which is accessible to all. A place 'where a friendly welcome and a culpa along with a helping hand is as important as the wide range of beautiful stock.'
On Tuesdays and Wednesdays the shop is open for social stitching. People from around the area are invited to bring a project and join in with like minded crafters. On the second Thursdays of every month they do crochet club. In November 2012 Bee Crafty was awarded retailer of the month by British Patchwork & Quilting.
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