To answer my own questions ...

Takes me 10 mins for a straight forward cut and re-hem and maybe 15 mins for those awkward 'take them up half an inch' jobs.

I charge £5 (don't shoot me yet, lol)

My reasoning is ... jeans and trousers are my bread and butter jobs, and I can be on a good hourly wage just doing them. So it helps me keep my costs down on other jobs. It keeps my customers coming back time and again. They usually come the second time around with about 5 pairs to do at once lol.

I don't need to advertise and most of the time I'm too scared to as I get bogged down with work. All my custom is word of mouth usually. I have even taken on a couple of ladies to help keep things flowing. They get paid what I charge the customer and pay rent instead. Seems to work.


I do have a terrible habit of not being able to say no to a job though.

I am curious ... how long does it take you all to take up a pair of jeans?

What do you charge (you don't have to answer this)?

What is your reasoning for your price?


I'll answer as well after a few folk have. It's not a competition, I'm just curious. xxx

So, I have an excellent reputation in my town for being great value and a genius. I don't feel comfortable with the second description, but hey!

Anyway, fast forward to recent times and our local foreign population are now frequent customers. I get odd requests regularly from them, from being very careful to shorten mummy's very expensive dress that cost her over £1400 (it had plastic rhinestones glued on it!) to doing seriously tight tapering to trouser legs, so much so that the gent really had to force his feet in ... on his request, and he was delighted with the result.

Well, this one particular lady started out by bringing me a leatherette skirt that she wanted me to put a zip top to bottom at the front. No problem. Then is was a seriously fluffy cardigan that she wanted a zip putting in, again no problem.

Then she arrive with 2 coats. Both pre-loved, one a size 6 and one a size 8. The lady was a size 16/18 (a guess as she did not want me to measure her in any way), her words "make them fit please". I explained there would not be enough in the seams to do this after a quick look. So she then says " make one out of both. Ooooh my days! One coat was faux fur and the other a corduroy type of material.

I am nuts and LOVE a challenge. So off we go! I snipped all the way up the middle back of the corduroy coat and then snipped a panel out of the faux fur coat at the back. Luckily they were exactly the same length. I put it all together and awaited her return. First fit and it was too large, which I expected, but it gave me the opportunity the gauge how big the panel at the back needed to be.

Fast forward to collection day of the finished coat, which was Friday just gone. Obviously I can't let anyone in my shop at the moment, so she came to the door. I handed her the coat from my doorway and she stripped down to try it on. It was only a blinking perfect fit! and although it sounds hideous it turns out corduroy and faux fur look quite good together. One thing is for sure ... no one else will have a coat like that!