Sewpro is 20 Years Old!!

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Twenty years ago i bought my first embroidery machine, just as a hobby. I used it to embroider the odd baby bib for a friend or to make polo shirts for the bike club I was in. All just a bit of fun really, but the process of designing the logos intrigued me! 'How do you make a logo really POP'? 'What makes this stitch stand out better than that one?'
At that time i was a full time Structural & Civil Engineer having worked on site & in various consultancies in the city.
Maybe it was the engineer in me that wanted to know more about the process.
Eventually with the downturn in the building trade (ie crash) of 2012 it was time to find at least a temporary job to make ends meet as the company i was in closed its doors.

​Looking at the embroidery machine sitting in a spare bedroom in my parents house i wondered could i make a business out of embroidery, was it worth a try while i searched for something back in Engineering? I decided i would give it a go, give it my best shot for 6 months, just to see how it would work out whilst still hunting for non-existent Engineering jobs.
Six months turned into a year, then two years, then i was in too deep to go back. A second machine arrived & i took a business unit down at Ballymena Business Centre, contract stating a months notice was required which made me feel i could always leave if it didn't work out.

Two machines became three, then four and the endless hours spent trying to generate work & contacting potential customers, nurture relationships with local businesses etc. Thanks to the support of friends & family the business was starting to grow, but I still hadn't a name that pleased me! There were a few ideas floating around but what pleased one person didn't impress another so eventually i went for the one that pleased me.... Sewpro, and that was that!

Over the early years i built up relationships with other Embroiderers around the country, and these guys were Embroiderers with a capital 'E'!! Old school guys who knew the industry & everyone in it. They helped me immensely at the start with my endless queries and late night machine problems. There was a great community at that time, these guys have since moved on & the industry has changed greatly since then. Sadly the Embroiderer is more or less a thing of the past now, there are plenty of people who can hit the start button on a machine, but that isn't embroidery. Tell me the stitch spacing you used and why, on what material, what stitch type, what underlay, how much pull compensation etc etc. Not too many would be able to tell you nowadays.

Maybe it is this attention to detail that makes our work stand out from the rest. Maybe this is why I do the 'specials' that no-one else is able to tackle, these are the jobs that make us embroiderers and not machinists. Anyone can send their logos away to get turned into stitch form, but then you have no control over the quality of what you get back.

Over the years I have helped many new start screen printers & embroidery business to get up & running. I have always tried to be as helpful as i can and share information that was freely shared with me back in the day. Not all these companies have made it but a couple have flourished which is great to see, and it is great to see some of what i have passed on being used on a day to day basis in these places.

I have been fortunate enough to work on some incredible one-off projects, jobs which very few would be willing to tackle these days. The commissioned Irish Dance dress for the Ulster Museum springs to mind, along with the LeMans race suit replica, our Round the World pennant and more recently the stole for the incoming President of the Methodist Church. Work which 'is the work of a genius' apparently, but i wouldn't go that far!!

We currently run 7 heads (embroidery machines) and cover a range of sectors from workwear, sportswear and school wear. Embroidery is the biggest percentage of our work but we also offer print as well. We have grown as our workload has increased, the business unit that seemed massive on day one is now pretty much full and we continue to turn out high end garment decoration right across the UK & Ireland.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped along the way, it has been (mostly) a fantastic journey. It has been 10x bigger a job than i ever expected, this is something that only the self employed would be able to relate to. But i wouldn't change it and i hope to be able to carry on turning out high quality embroidery & printing for a long time to come. T